250 Cookbooks: Ryzon Baking Book

Posted on December 6, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #138: Ryzon Baking Book, Marion Harris Neil, General Chemical Company, 1917.

1917! This was my grandmother’s cookbook. She turned the pages when my mother was only one year old. On one page there are crayon marks: Could they have been made by Mother? On another page my grandmother wrote some math calculations. She was good at math.

The book is a bit water-wrinkled with a few sugar stains (and crayon marks) but otherwise in pretty good shape. It’s hard-covered, unusual for an advertising booklet. “Price $1.00” translates into $20.24 in today’s inflated dollars. Another blogger wrote about this cookbook too: The History of Food and Drink Collection, What’s Cookin’ @Special Collections.

“Ryzon”, what’s that? Ryzon was a brand of baking powder sold for a few years in the early twentieth century.

What is baking powder? It is a chemical mixture that makes breads and cakes “rise” in the oven. It is called a “leavening agent”. Before baking powder, yeast was used to leaven breads and cakes. In a mixture of flour and water, yeast ferments, and on baking, the mixture releases carbon dioxide, putting little bubbles in the mixture and the bread rises. Yeast-risen breads and cakes tend to have a distinctive yeasty flavor.

Baking soda is another leavening agent. It is sodium bicarbonate, a weak base that can be found in natural deposits. When baking soda is mixed with water, flour, and a small amount of an acidic ingredient like sour milk or vinegar, it too releases carbon dioxide on heating and causes breads and cakes to rise. Baking soda was used by the ancient Egyptians for paints; by the mid-eighteenth century it was used for baking. Baking soda breads tend to have a distinctive flavor of their own because one ingredient must be sour.

Baking powder was introduced to the cooking public in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a dry mixture of baking soda and a weak solid acid. This acid can be one of several phosphate or sulfate compounds:

monocalcium phosphate
sodium aluminium slufate
potassium bitartrate (potassium hydrogen tartrate, or cream of tartar)
monosodium phosphate
sodium acid pyrophosphate

Cornstarch is added to the weak base-weak acid mixture to keep the two from combining (and reacting) on storage. The cornstarch also keeps the baking powder from clumping. Percentages: baking soda 30%, weak acid 5-25%, rest is cornstarch.

Baking powder gives virtually no flavor to baked goods (although some may argure this point, see the next paragraph) and bakers don’t have to include an acidic ingredient in the batter. It is simple to use because you don’t have to wait for a dough to rise. That’s why breads leavened with baking powder/baking soda are called “quick breads”.

Cooks are often picky when it comes to their choice of the weak acid used in the baking powder product they use. Some don’t like aluminum-acid containing baking powders because the aluminum lends baked goods a metallic taste; some believe aluminum is not be good for your health.

Some baking powders are “double acting”, meaning they contain two different weak acids, one that starts acting as soon as water is added and one that doesn’t act until it is heated in the oven.

Ryzone was a single-acting baking powder: it used only monosodium phosphate. The Ryzon Baking Powder cookbook claims that phosphate baking powders are the most desirable. One section raves about the purity of their monosodium phosphate and the cleanliness of their factory and workers.

What kind of baking powder do I use? I generally use whatever brand my local supermarket sells. Currently I have an open can of Clabber Girl Double Acting baking powder in my cabinet. The acids in this brand are sodium aluminum sulfate and monocalcium phosphate. I also have a new can of Bakewell Cream (purchased from King Arthur Flour) that includes only the weak acid sodium acid pyrophosphate (although they claim it is double acting).

All this might be boring to you, but for me – as a chemist and as a cook – I liked reviewing a baking process I use all the time.

Here are some take-home lessons to help our quick bread baking:

When using baking powder or baking soda, you always need to get the batter in the oven as soon as possible so the little bubbles don’t escape before your bread or cake is baked. (You probably have 10-15 minutes.)
Baking soda is the choice when you use sour milk (buttermilk) or yogurt in the batter.
Recipes often call for a combination of baking soda and baking powder. This is because double acting baking powder gives an extra “umpf” when the batter is heated.
Baking powder is a less-concentrated leavening agent than baking soda because it has a filler (cornstarch). It is 30% baking soda, while baking soda is 100%.
Be careful not to use too much baking powder, because if it is not all used in the baking process, it might lend a metallic taste to your baked good.
If you are out of baking powder but have cream of tartar, you can substitute: mix two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda.
Rule of thumb: use one teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour in a recipe that does not have an acidic ingredient.
Rule of thumb: use 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda per cup of flour and cup of buttermilk.

I decide to make Ryzon Gingerbread for this blog (and for us!).

Note the bit of history in the above clip: “Gingerbread is probably one of the oldest forms of cake known. It has certainly been known since the fourteenth centure, when it was made and sold in Paris.”

I have always liked gingerbread, but I don’t make it a lot. In fact, I don’t even have a “go to” recipe for plain old gingerbread (I do make a great Apple Gingerbread Cobbler). This Ryzon recipe has lots of molasses in it, which is considered a healthy-ish sweetener. (I am surprised at how many of the recipes in this Ryzon cookbook are called “health breads” and have whole wheat flour in them.) And it has nutritious raisins and nuts. The recipe calls for “a shallow pan” – I chose a 9-inch square pan and it worked fine. A “moderate” oven is 350-375˚ – I chose 375˚. Below is my version.

Hearty Gingerbread

1 cup molasses (340 g)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup nuts
1 cup raisins
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
3 cups flour
2 eggs

Combine the molasses, butter, sugar, and water in a pan and heat gently (with stirring) on the stove until the butter melts. Remove from heat and let cool.

Butter and flour a 9-inch baking pan (or a 7×11-inch pan). Heat the oven to 375˚.

Combine the nuts and raisins on a cutting surface and chop roughly. (You can, of course, chop them in any way you like.) Add the nut/raisin mixture to the molasses mixture. Stir together the baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and flour and then add it to the nut/raisin/molasses mixture. Beat the eggs and add them too.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 375˚ for 40-50 minutes, until it is nicely browned and pulls away from the sides of the pan.

I really enjoyed this gingerbread. Gingery and molassesy. And dense with nuts and raisins. We had it for dessert with cool whip. It’s also good for snacking during the day, and for breakfast!

Note: after writing this post, a friend alerted me to posts on the Serious Eats blog on baking powder and baking soda. Excellent discussions.

I liked the way the book lay open on the counter:

I also like the page that describes how to measure a level teaspoon and the two inside-cover pages from the back of the book that talk about the General Chemical Company factory.

250 Cookbooks: 101 Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on November 29, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #137: 101 Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, Gwen Steege, Storey Communications, Inc., Pownal, Vermont, 2000.

I must have purchased this cookbook in a weak moment! The recipes are great, all of them. But calorie-laden. If you like chocolate chip cookies but are in a cookie-rut, it’s time to open this book and make a slightly different batch of these delights. Me? I love chocolate chip cookies, but I’ve only tried one so far from this cookbook: “Joyous Chocolate Chip Cookies”.

Who contributed the cookie recipes to this book? Well, they are the best recipes from entries to a contest in 1987 sponsored by The Orchards, an inn in western Massachusetts. Entries came from “almost every state, as well as from Italy, Canada, and Mexico”. So, the recipes were contributed by people like you and me. Each recipe has a note written by the person who sent it in. It’s a very friendly book.

And how can there be so many chocolate chip cookie variations? The chips can be chunks and can be of differents sizes or different chocolates (milk, semi-sweet, or bittersweet), or non-chocolate chips can be added to the mix. Flour can be white or whole wheat; a grain like oatmeal can be added. Butter, margarine, vegetable shortening or oil can be used. Different sweeteners are employed: brown or white sugar, honey, corn syrup, molasses. Peanut butter and nuts, fruits and vegetables are nutritious additions.

The first chapter of this book is a great reference for the effects of different oils and sugars on the texture of cookies. For beginners, it’s also a great reference for basic cookie mixing and baking techniques.

Gwen Steege published this and one other cookie book, and a book on gardening. She’s published lots of stuff on knitting.

I decide to make Apple Orchard Chocolate Chippers.

I used the maximum amount of flour and I did add nuts, and I changed the cooking temperature. I had my own apple butter to use in this recipe. Below is my version.

Apple Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 3 dozen

1/2 cup butter (preferrably unsalted)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup apple butter
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (use less if your butter is salted)
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
1 medium apple, cored and grated
1 cup chopped walnuts

Cream the butter and sugars, then add the egg and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Add the apple butter and mix well.

Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add this mixture to the creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips, apple, and walnuts.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased or parchment lined baking sheets. Bake at 375˚ for about 12 minutes, or until they are beginning to brown.

These are great! They are kind of cake-like, some said they even are like “muffin tops”. They definitely satisfy (or encourage) my sweet tooth.

Favorites: Julie’s Cherry Pie

Posted on November 23, 2015 by admin

I had a craving for cherry pie this week. I pulled out my old recipe card and figured I had better save it in a better format before it was totally ruined.

This is a great cherry pie. I copied it from my mother’s collection when I left home in the 70s. Why is it called “Julie’s” cherry pie? I have no idea. My husband has a sister named Julie, but I was making this pie before we met. Cherry pie is probably my husband’s favorite pie! He always insists that I make criss-crosses of crust strips on top.

The crust recipe on this card calls for Crisco and half and half. It is a good, tender crust, but these days I prefer my newer crust recipe that uses Crisco, butter, and vodka.

As for the tart cherries, the easiest to find are canned cherries. But I have used fresh-picked (when very lucky!) or fresh-frozen cherries as well in this recipe. (Not sure where I got the cherry juice in those instances, but I’m pretty sure today that cherry juice is sold separately somewhere.)

This weekend, I made this pie as two small pies. We split one pie on Saturday and still had another for the next night. Mini-sized desserts works well for the two of us – here are a couple other mini-dessert recipes on a previous blog entry.

Double the recipe and bake in a 10-inch pie pan. (If you use a 9-inch pie pan, it might run over.) My small pie “pans” are fiesta ware 6-inch slanted side oven-safe dishes, a little over 1 3/4-inch deep.

Julie’s Cherry Pie
makes 2 small pies

one recipe pie crust (use 1 1/4 cup flour)
1 can tart cherries; 14.5 oz. size
scant 1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup cherry juice
a few drops red food coloring (you can leave this out)

Drain the cherries, reserving juice.

Combine the sugar and corn starch in a pan, then slowly stir in 1/2 cup of the cherry juice. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, then simmer and stir a couple minutes. It doesn’t get real thick or real clear, but it’s okay.

Remove from heat and add the red food coloring (if using) and the drained cherries. Cool.

Divide the crust dough into 3 nearly equal portions. Roll out 2 of them and fit into 2 small pie pans. Divide the cherry mixture between the two pans.

Roll the rest of the dough and cut into strips. Put the strips in a criss-cross pattern on each pie. Trim the crusts, roll under and flute.

Bake at 425˚ for 10 minutes and then at 350˚ for 30 minutes.

Boy these are good. A little ice cream on top? Sure. Absolutely heavenly.

250 Cookbooks: Crockery Cookery

Posted on November 21, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #136: Crockery Cookery, Mable Hoffman, H. P. Books, Tucson, AZ, 1975.

“Welcome to good eating! Slow cooking is the secret of good cooks the world over.” So begins the introduction to Crockery Cookery. This is a very friendly book – totally opposite from my last blog entry, Let’s Cook It Right. However, Mable Hoffman touts slow cooking just like Adelle Davis did, e.g., the slow-baked roast beef that I made last week. Hoffman writes that slow cooking “retains many vitamins high temperatures destroy.”

Mable Hoffman published 18 cookbooks over 25 years. She was one of the first to publish recipes specifically for slow-cookers. This 2010 article, Mable Hoffman dies at 88; slow-cooker pioneer wrote ‘Crockery Cookery’, tells us about her life and writing.

(See my first crockpot blog entry for a little on the history of crockpots.)

I like Crockery Cookery. Lots of good-sounding recipes with ingredients I usually keep on hand. The first chapters cover the use and care of slow cookers and measurement conversion charts, and a chapter titled “Consumer’s Guide) is of historical interest – it decribes the crockpots available in 1975. There is a temperature chart with details on how these recipes work with each type of pot. The soups and stews chapters are the ones I would use most often, but I noted the snack mix recipes (like chex mix) in the appetizers chapter as well. Of course, the recipes are 4 decades old, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t tasty.

And I’ll keep this cookbook for another reason: it was my mother’s. She noted several recipes and stashed clipped slow cooker recipes between several of the pages. I decide to make one of the recipes she marked with notes, German Short Ribs:

Short ribs are available bone-in or boneless. They are usually cut into individual ribs, like country-style pork spareribs. Short ribs are a flavorful but less-tender cut of meat: perfect for a slow cooker. I went to the butcher at Whole Foods and found short ribs that were in long chunks, both bone-in and boneless. The bone-in ones were very fatty and the boneless ones very lean. I got one bone-in rib for the flavor, and then four boneless ribs for the lower calories. Then I cooked them as in the above recipe, using my mother’s advice to cook for 1 hour on high and 7 hours on low.

German Short Ribs
serves 4-6

3-3 1/2 pounds beef short ribs (I suggest boneless ones)
2 tablespoons flour (for dredging the meat)
salt and pepper
oil (or lard or shortening) for browning the meat
2 medium onions, sliced
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup chili sauce (can use ketchup)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons vinegar (I used white vinegar)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons flour (for thickening)

Salt and pepper the short ribs and dredge in the 2 tablespoons flour. Brown on all sides in hot oil (I used groovy lard). I did this browning step in a pan on the stove; if your slow-cooker has a browning setting, you can do it in the cooker itself.

Remove the meat from the fat (drain it if you brown it in the cooker).

Combine the onions, wine, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and chili powder in the slow cooker. Add the meat and mix.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Remove the meat from the cooker. Mix the final 2 tablespoons flour in a small amount of water and stir it into the sauce in the slow cooker. Turn the slow cooker to high and cook about 10 minutes, or until slightly thickened.

Serve over wide noodles.

“Delicious flavor” just like my mother noted! The ingredient mixture was perfect. And it smelled really good cooking!

I cooked them an hour on high and 7 hours on low. But next time, I will cook them 6-8 hours on low. I think my crockpot cooks a bit higher on low than crockpots from the 1970s; anyway, I felt mine were a little overdone. The meat was broken down almost like a shredded beef dish. No complaints from my dining partner, though! I will make these again.

Note: We had leftovers so I froze the meat and gravy. A couple weeks later, I heated it up and added potatoes and carrots and served it like stew. This meat really has great flavor.

Note: These are the crockpot cookbooks that I have covered so far.

The Electric Slow Cooker Cookbook 2/2013
Crock-Pot Cookbook 8/2013
New Crockery Cooker Cook Book 4/2014
New Slow Cooker Meals 8/2014
New Creative Crock-Pot Stoneware Slow Cooker Cookbook 4/2015

250 Cookbooks: Let’s Cook It Right

Posted on November 16, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #135: Let’s Cook It Right, Adelle Davis, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., NY, NY, 1970.

Adelle Davis. I remember this author as one of the gurus of the health food movement back in our hippie days.

My copy of this book is well-worn. I keep it in the kitchen as a reference for cooking meats because it has good roast-cooking time tables. I always cook turkeys according to her directions: stuffed and on a rack with the breast side down. Each Thanksgiving since 1995, I have left a note on a piece of paper tucked between pages 54 and 55 of this book. On each note is how I cooked the turkey, and how it turned out.

Let’s Cook it Right was first published in 1947, then updated in 1962 and 1970. My 1970 edition dedication reads:

“Dedicated to my daughter, Barbara, in the hope that here husband and children will not have to eat TV dinners.”

I haven’t actually read this book in decades. I recall Davis as being a bit “preachy”. But I liked her, partly because she – like me – earned a masters in biochemistry. This week I take some time scanning through Let’s Cook it Right. From the preface:

“Surely we all agree that our foods should be both delicious and sufficiently health-building to enhance our enjoyment of life; and that dishes which are good for you but almost impossible to eat deserve little praise. Since we spend approximately a thousand hours each year eating our meals, they should be pleasant hours, times of family unity and companionship.”

Davis stresses that we need to buy nutritious foods and then cook them correctly to preserve the nutrients. And she assumes the cooking is done by the woman of the household, as in:

“Despite the need to retain maximum value in all food preparation, women are advised by thousands of recipes to extract and discard nutrients or to destroy them by high temperatures, long cooking, or the incorporation of air”.

The tone of Adelle Davis’ writing is serious and didactic: women must learn how to cook properly so that they do not ruin or toss nutrients. Her reward for this work:

“When she hears her physician praise the beauty of her children, when she sees her husband, young beyond his years, succeeding because of his energies, when she feels the surge of vibrant health in her own body, she will realize that she is largely responsible. She has shouldered her tasks and has seen to it that good health has come from good cooking.”

Once I get past the preachiness and non-feminist ideas, I do like many of the concepts in this book. “You Need Have No Failures in Cooking Meats” is the chapter I have used the most. “Serve Your Salads First” is a firm and steady rule of my household, just ask any member of my family. In “Get Acquainted with Fish” she asks: “How many hundreds of tmes have you heard housewives remark, ‘I don’t cook fish because I don’t like the odor in the house’? The fact is that when fish is properly cooked, there is no odor.” Davis’ advice for cooking fish at low temperature helped me keep fish odors to the minimum.

Let’s Cook it Right leans heavily towards protein-dense foods. Adelle Davis frowns on sugar, and writes that if a person is sedentary, they should only eat 1 slice of bread per day. The chapter on bread is titled “If You Want to Bake Bread”. In her opinion, one should buy whole wheat bread loaves rather than bake it at home. I am the opposite – I love home-baked bread! From my notes in this cookbook, I can tell that I tried her whole wheat bread recipe, but I did not write whether or not it turned out. There are almost zero cake recipes in this version of Let’s Cook it Right. In the chapter on desserts, “Desserts Can Contribute to Health”, Davis writes: “Frankly, I have never been good at baking cakes.”

This excerpt from the bread chapter illustrates the tone of Davis’ writing:

“Never shall I forget a dinner to which a friend invited me, saying, ‘I’m going to prepare everything from your cookbook.’ It was her first attempt to use whole-wheat flour and powdered milk. She had tried to make yeast bread of rancid pastry flour and still more rancid wheat germ, purchased from a market where the turnover was slow. She had added to the bread powdered milk which should have been sweet-smelling and as fine as face powder but which had an offensive odor and looked like crushed rock; such changes occur when powdered milk has been left exposed to the air. It was impossible to say who was the more embarrassed, my hostess or myself. We ate cold cereal, however, and remained friends. But I shudder when I think of how many other hosewives may have unknowingly obtained products of inferior quality.”

Davis would be amazed to walk into today’s stores with their abundant fresh whole grain flours, not to mention the ready availability of responsibly grown beef, pork, and chicken products.

(I note this with some distress: Davis writes that if we are enjoying the aroma of something cooking, we should be aware that the nutrients are leaving the meal along with the smells.)

In Let’s Cook it Right, Adelle Davis does not toute vitamin supplements. But apparently that is not true of all of her writings. On Quackwatch, the article “The Legacy of Adelle Davis” by Stephen Barrett claims that her recommendations of supplements for certain conditions were sometimes dangerous. From Wikipedia: “She . . . became the most recognized nutritionist in the country. Despite her popularity, she was heavily criticized by her peers for many recommendations she made that were not supported by the scientific literature, some of which were considered dangerous.” On the other hand, the Adelle Davis Foundation is entirely positive about her contributions and continues her legacy.

For this blog, I turn to the chapter “You Need Have No Failures in Cooking Meats”. Adelle Davis presents a wonderful way to cook a beef roast. You put it in a 300˚ oven for an hour, then turn the oven down to the temperature you want it to end up at (or turn the oven off) and leave it the entire day. Come home and the roast is cooked to perfection, evenly medium-rare pink throughout. I used to do this all the time! It’s great for the working person, and it’s also great (according to Davis) for keeping nutrients in the meat. This method is similar to sous vide, in that you slow cook the meat by setting the cooking device – the oven in this case – to the desired finished temperature.

(No scan of this recipe; Davis’ method is explained in a two-page section titled “Slow Roasting”.)

In the spirit of Adelle Davis, I buy a responsively grown 4 pound beef rump-round roast at Whole Foods. (She would not have approved of the cost, however!)

In 2015, I have an oven that I can set to any temperature from 100˚ to 550 ˚ F. This should work even better than the oven I had back when I first explored this method, as that oven did not have low temperature settings.

Slow-Roasted Beef

3-4 pound beef rump or round roast
salt and pepper
olive or vegetable oil

If the meat has more than 1/2 inch of fat on it, trim some of the fat off. Season the roast with salt and pepper (Davis says not to salt the meat; I disagree). Rub a little oil over the surface of the roast. Place the roast in a roasting pan, on a rack if possible. Do not cover the roast. Insert a meat thermometer in the center of the roast.

Place the roast in a preheated 300˚ oven for 1 hour (to destroy bacteria on the surface). Then, turn the oven down to internal temperature that you desire. (If your oven does not have a low setting, simply turn it off. It should work.) Do not open the oven door!

rare 135˚
medium 150˚
well done 160˚

For a rare-cooked roast, it takes about 2 1/2 hours per pound.

When the meat has reached the internal temperature that you want, take it out and serve.

Mine turned out perfect! I cooked it to rare. It was evenly pink throughout, just the way we like it! Good the first night with mashed potatoes and gravy, and excellent sliced/shaved very thin for sandwiches the next several days.

250 Cookbooks: Food Lover’s Companion

Posted on November 7, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #134: Food Lover’s Companion, 3rd ed., Sharon Tyler Herbst, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., Hauppauge, NY, 2001.

Food Lover’s Companion is a dictionary of food, drink, and culinary terms. No, it’s not a “cookbook”, but it’s in my cookbook database, so one of my “250 Cookbooks”.

I bought this reference book on the recommendation of a fellow classmate at the Culinary School of the Rockies (now Escoffier’s) in Boulder. While flipping through Artichoke to Za’atar, I thought to look up some of the unfamiliar Middle Eastern terms in Food Lover’s Companion. All the terms I looked up were there! And I thought “aha, I’ll use this incidence to segue from a cookbook to a reference book in my blog”. So now I hold Food Lover’s Companion in hand to find something to cook for this blog, even though I’ll have to search for the recipe elsewhere.

There are almost 6000 entries in this book. One might ask: Why own a printed dictionary when you can search online? A few reasons. One, often I find something else interesting when searching for a specific term. Two, books are often more carefully edited and researched than internet sources. And – especially in my case – sometimes your internet service is slow and boggy and fails. (That’s one of the downsides of living out in the boonies.)

“Abalone” is the first entry in Food Lover’s Companion. I know that word, but the second entry I do not: “abbacchio, Italian for a very young lamb”. I once bought a “black radish” at Whole Foods, now I know that this large radish dates back to ancient Egypt, and can be used in salads or stir-fry dishes. “Hangtown Fry” consists of fried breaded oysters cooked together with eggs and fried bacon, and is named for a town known for its frequent hangings. “Mesclun” is a “potpourri of young, small salad greens” – essentially it is “salad mix”. “Pound cake” was originally “made with one pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs”. “Sémillon” is a white grape grown mostly in France. “Tsukemono” is a Japanese-style pickled vegetable. “Yuba” is the skin that forms when soymilk is heated; it is then removed and dried in sheets. “Zwieback”, oven-crisped bread, is the last entry in Companion. But this entry does not denote the end of the book: the appendices are helpful too, especially an extensive list of different types of pasta.

For this blog? I decide to make a rösti. In Switzerland, rösti means “crisp and golden”, like fried foods browned on both sides. Usually it refers to potatoes, as in, “Rösti Potatoes”. These are like potato latkes and common hashbrowns.

I search online for “rösti potatoes” and find many recipes for this dish. And all the recipes are different! The potatoes might be grated, julienned in a food processor, or sliced by hand; they might be fried in butter or oil or a mixture of both; a lot of fat might be used or very little. I choose a recipe for Pomme Rosti on ChefSteps, largely because the photos are so great.

In this ChefSteps recipe, the potatoes are sliced thin (1 mm) in a mandolin. Then, the slices are stacked and sliced thinly again into strips (see the photos on the website). I used a food processor to slice the potatoes, took them out and stacked them, and sliced the stacks into strips by hand. Mine were not as neat as theirs!

Next, the potatoes are rinsed in water, drained, and blotted dry. In a bowl, you add about a cube of melted unsalted butter and some salt to the potatoes, then pour the mass into a heated non-stick pan and lightly brown on one side by cooking for about 5 minutes. The pan is then put into a 375˚ oven for 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are well browned on the bottom. The pancake is turned to cook the other side for about 10-15 minutes. On the ChefSteps site, the potato pancake is actually flipped in the air above the pan! No way could I do that. I would have had potatoes all over the kitchen.

My rösti did not turn out as pretty as the ChefSteps one, but it tasted very good. We scarfed it all up.

Would I make it again? No, not this exact way. For one, it was way too rich with all the butter. Second, I need to use a different pan to brown them, either a non-stick or a cast iron pan (I used my newish and not well seasoned Matfer black steel frypan). I think I should have pressed the potatoes more firmly into the pan while they cooked. I feel that there was much water in the potatoes – they sputtered as they cooked. When I make potato pancakes, I spin them in a salad spinner to get rid of the excess water; this same technique could be applied to a rösti. And maybe the butter mixed in with the potato shreds prevented them from forming a solid mass. It’s back to google searches or searches in my own cookbook library for the next time I make rösti potatoes.

But I’ll keep this book! I highly recommend it.

Note: The latest edition of Food Lover’s Companion, the fifth, was published in 2013.

250 Cookbooks: Artichoke to Za’atar

Posted on November 1, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #133: Artichoke to Za’atar, Greg Malouf and Lucy Malouf, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA, 2008.

This is a beautiful cookbook. The photos are amazing. Pleasing designs and colors are carried throughout the pages. And – the Middle Eastern recipes are interesting and often enticing.

My daughter brought me this cookbook when she moved from Washington, DC to Togo, West Africa. She knows a lot more about Middle Eastern cooking than I do. I only took a class in it – she traveled to Morroco and stayed with families there. I do want to learn more about this cuisine, and Artichoke to Za’atar is great for reference and for recipes. I’m glad this blog got me to take this book off the shelf and spend some time with it.

A little about the authors. Greg Malouf is “modern Middle Eastern” grand chef. He lives in Australia but his heritage is Lebanese. On this site, you can see some of his handiwork (2015). I recommend his Facebook page too. Lucy Malouf, who is now his ex-wife, has had a “rich and varied career”. From her site, Lucy “. . . is regarded as one of the most experienced food editors in the publishing industry. She is also a member of that peculiar group of people who enjoy compiling indexes.” Ah, a woman after my own heart! I once indexed an organic chemistry laboratory text and thoroughly enjoyed that task!

Oh yes, I can learn a lot from Greg and Lucy Malouf.

Many recipes in Artichoke to Za’atar look exotic, but the directions seem clear and easy to follow. I think that my problem will be in finding some of the ingredients in local stores. Examples: amardine (apricot leather), orange blossom water, haloumi cheese, merguez sausages, white haricot beans, fresh fava beans, juniper berries, sumac, quinces, rose water, Vialone Nano rice, poussin (very young chicken), pigeon, rabbit. (Rabbit? We have tons of rabbits on our land this year, but I am not about to kill and dress one.)

I decide to make “Honey-Roasted Pear and Walnut Salad” for this blog:

The ingredients that might be hard to find are orange blossom water and haloumi cheese and frisee. I start in downtown Boulder with a visit to my favorite ingredient and spice shops. Got lucky on my first store, Peppercorn, and found the orange blossom water (with the help of a saleswoman).

Cypricot haloumi cheese? I know that Whole Foods has a good selection of cheese, so I started there. Couldn’t find it in the fancy cheeses, but a store helper led me to the area of fresh mozzarella, feta, quesa fresca – those sorts of cheeses – and there it was:

When I got to the check-out stand, they couldn’t find a price on this cheese, even sent the bagger back to look, so they gave it to me for free! The clerk raved about this cheese as a “grilling cheese”. I am looking forward to tasting it!

Frisee is a type of lettuce that is often in the “spring mix” packages, but I don’t recall seeing it sold separately. I was wrong! I found “endive frisee” sold by the head in the produce section of Whole Foods.

I have cardamom pods in my own spice cabinet. They smell wonderful! Cardamom comes in seeds, powder, or pods. Here is my jar of whole cardamom pods:

The cardamom seeds are inside the greenish pods. I cracked a pod and peeled it apart and found these black seeds:

If you have cardamom seeds or powder in your pantry, my guess is that you could substitute them for the pods.

The rest of the ingredients (even watercress) are easy to find. Pears especially are easy – it is fall and pears are in abundance. (Once I ordered “roasted pear salad” at a restaurant in Boulder, and they only put one measly pear in it! This time I will have a lot of pears.) The recipe does not say how many it serves. It looked like too much for the two of us, so I cut back the ingredients.

Aargh. As I prepared this salad, I took issue with many of the instructions. It said to use a “very hot oven” for the walnuts. To me, a “hot” oven is 475˚, the temperature I use to bake rustic breads. I chose 450˚ to roast the walnuts, and they were burnt after 4 minutes of cooking (I had to start over). It calls for the “juice of 2 lemons” but did not specifiy how much went for the cheese and how much for the dressing. I don’t think running the onion under water for 5 minutes is necessary. It says to “add the pears”, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to add just the pears, or the pears and their cooking liquid. (For that matter, I was disappointed that the pears were “roasted” by frying in a pan, not cooking in a hot oven.) The recipe lists frisee but does not specify when to add it to the salad. Whisk the oil and lemon juice “gently”? That’s odd, usually you want to whisk it to an emulsion.

Below is my version of this recipe.

Pear, Walnut, and Haloumi Cheese Salad

Pears

2 ripe pears, peeled and cut into quarters
2 1/2 tablespoons honey (about 50 grams)
3 cardamom pods, seeded (use the seeds only)
1 tablespoon orange-blossom water
1 tablespoon sherry
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Combine the honey, cardamom seeds, orange-blossom water, and sherry in a small pan and heat gently to combine. Save.

Heat the butter and 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil in a heavy fry pan. Keeping the heat at medium high to high heat, add the pear and sear the pears for 1 minute on each “side” (my pears had 3 sides). Add the saved honey mixture and cook for 2 more minutes, or until the liquid is a caramel color. Turn the pears carefuly a few times as the liquid is caramelizing.

Set the pears aside and save.

Walnuts

1/2 cup walnut haves

Roast the walnuts by placing in a pan in a 400˚ oven for about 5 minutes. Check during the cook time, as they can become black quite quickly.

Cheese

4 ounces Haloumi cheese, sliced 1/8-inch thick
1/4 cup flour
1-2 tablespoons olive oil (extra-virgin not necessary)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (juice one lemon and use 1 tablespoon here, the rest in the dressing)
thyme, about 1 fresh sprig chopped or about 1/4 teaspoon dried

Heat a fry pan over high heat and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Dust the haloumi cheese in the flour and then cook the cheese slices until they are golden brown on each side. Remove the cheese from the pan and sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon lemon juice and the thyme.

Salad

1/4 of a red (purple) onion, thinly sliced
about 1/4 of a bunch of watercress, leaves only
about 1/2 cup endive frisee lettuce (if you can find it)
(use any lettuce combination you have on hand)
about 1/3 cup whole black olives, brined are especially good
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
juice of one lemon (well, what is left after taking out the 1 tablespoon for the cheese slices)
salt and pepper to taste

Put the pears (fish them out of their cooking liquid), the fried haloumi cheese, the watercress, frisee, olives, onion, and most of the walnuts in a bowl and mix gently. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice and salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix gently. Serve topped with the remaining walnuts.

My version of this salad was very flavorful, and quite pretty. In the cookbook they say to serve it as a “starter”. Since it is a fairly substantial salad, I decided to serve it plated with salmon and garlic bread as a complete meal.

I will make a version of this again, I’m sure. But next time I might try a couple variations. I would like to try the haloumi cheese grilled outside instead of fried in oil. For the pears, I want to try roasting them in the oven instead of frying in a syrupy sauce.

A small additional note. This cookbook is organized in alphabetical order by ingredient name. But, “artichoke” is not the first entry, “almond” is. And the last entry is “zucchini”. “Za’atar” is a thyme spice mixture, and does not have it’s own entry. I guess they did not want to call this book “Almond to Zucchini”!

250 Cookbooks: Forrest Gump™ My Favorite Chocolate Recipes

Posted on October 26, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #132: Forrest Gump™ My Favorite Chocolate Recipes, Oxmoor House, Inc., Birmingham, AL, 1995.

“Forrest Gump” was a cultural phenomenon in the 1990s. Probably most Americans of a certain age have seen the 1994 film, starred in by Tom Hanks as the slow but wise and likeable character Forrest Gump who bumbled through life with a Southern accent and a good attitude and lots of amazing adventures. I admit that it isn’t among my favorite flicks, so I am sort of surprised that I own this book. Maybe it was on sale? Dunno.

The book does not credit an author, but the copyright page credits Winston Groom as the author of the Southern-accented introductions to the recipes. Who is Winston Groom? Aha, the author of the novel, Forrest Gump. He also authored several other novels as well as history books.

The recipes are all chocolate and rich. I did use this book – chocolate stains on the pages! Chocolate, cream, butter, candy bars, nuts, sugar, ice cream, cream cheese . . . it’s hard not to make a good tasting dessert. But as I’ve stated before, these lovelies rarely fit into my diet plan. (Moderation, yes, is the answer, but it’s hard to adhere to.)

For this blog? I decide to make Triple-Decker Brownies. With a slight hint of nutrition from oatmeal and pecans, these will be a sweet treat for Halloween festivities, shared with my daughter’s family to spread the calories around. I am already looking forward to my first taste of these brownies!

Triple Decker Brownies, Forrest Gump™
makes 2 8×8-inch pans

Crust

1 1/2 cups toasted oatmeal (quick type; toast in dry pan on stovetop until fragrant)
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted

Filling

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pecans, chopped

Frosting

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup butter
3 cups powdered sugar (sifted if it is clumpy)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup hot water

Crust: Combine oatmeal, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Add the 3/4 cup melted butter and stir well. Press into two greased 8-inch square pans. Bake at 350˚ for 10 minutes.

Filling: Melt 2 ounces chocolate and 1/2 cup butter in a pan. Off heat, add sugar and eggs and mix well. Combine the 1 1/3 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and add to the chocolate mixture alternately with milk. Stir in vanilla and pecans. Spread over the baked crust. Bake at 350˚ for 20-25 minutes. Cool.

Frosting: Melt 2 ounces chocolate and 1/4 cup butter in a pan. Off heat, stir in powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1 tablespoon water. Stir in an additional 3 to 3 tablespoons water until frosting is desired spreading consistency. Spread on cooled brownies.

These are sinfully good. I ate one and wanted more more more! Will I make them again? Only if I have help eating them!

250 Cookbooks: Cooking of Vienna’s Empire

Posted on October 17, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #131: Cooking of Vienna’s Empire, Joseph Wechsberg and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1968, 1974, reprinted 1977. Foods of the World series.

I looked forward to discovering another interesting author as I opened this cookbook, as I had discovered M. F. K. Fisher in the Cooking of Provinvial France and Emily Hahn in the Cooking of China. I wasn’t disappointed!

Joseph Wechsberg was born in Czechoslovakia in 1907. He took up the violin at age 7, studied music, and then law, worked as a musician on French ocean liners, played violin in Paris night clubs, was a reporter for a newspaper in Prague, and commanded a machine gun company on the Polish frontier. In 1938 he came to the US as a representative of the Czechoslovakian government; after the war broke out, he claimed assylum in the US and remained here until the 1970s. He passed away in Vienna in 1983.

Wechsberg worked at the New Yorker for decades, and contributed to numerous other magazines, including Gourmet Magazine. He was proficient in four languages, and authored many books of fiction and non-fiction. According to the Joseph Wechsberg website, he had some “raffish” occupations as a young man, and:

“He could scarcely have avoided becoming a reporter: he had an intense curiosity about how things worked and how people behaved; he was a natural absorber of sounds and sights and facts; he took nothing for granted; detail enchanted him. His private pleasures and his journalism largely overlapped.”

He had a love of good food. I can see that clearly as I read The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire. In chapter five, “The Influence of Czechoslovakia”, he writes of Marie, the cook in his family’s home: “She was born to cook as other people are born to write or paint. She was an instinctive cook. I never saw her read a cookbook, but her recipes had become part of her life, closely guarded from the curious and envious.”

Wechsberg’s Definition of a ‘Serious Eater’ (the New Yorker, 1949):

“My friends were ‘serious eaters’; they loved truly good food and scorned the snobbism of self-appointed ‘gourmets‘ and one-dish amateur cooks. They didn’t consider themselves gourmets, but they would confide to each other, with the air of brokers divulging something hot in the market, the addresses of good restaurants.” (Aaron Mattis)

Happily, I have discovered another interesting culinary writer of the twentieth century. I plan to look up a few of his books. In the meantime, I am enjoy reading The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire. It is called a “coffee table book” (can’t help but think of Kramer of Seinfeld fame!). Alongside full page color photographs, Wechsberg describes the cooking of the Old Empire, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia (note the names/borders of these countries have changed). A whole chapter is devoted to the “Pastry Paradise”.

Searching for a recipe to cook for this blog, I know I would love to cook just about any recipe from this book – but they are pretty heavily laden with cream and butter and dumplings and sausages and . . . calories. Some recipes include fish or game that is not available here.

Then – “paprika” and “onions” and “lard” catch my eye:

“The foundation of modern Hungarian cooking is the use of lard, onions and paprika . . . Perhaps the most critical thing in Hungarian cooking, according to experienced cooks I have talked with, is the frying of onions. On this process depends the subtlety of color and flavor that lovers of such food expect. The onions are fried in lard – slowly and with great care. Paprika . . . Hungarian cooking is famous for it – but it is nonsense to believe that any dish containing a handful of this strong red spice is good Hungarian food. Good cooks agreee that it should be used sparingly.”

I know that cooking and seasoning onions properly is the basis of a lot of dishes that I make, and I enjoy the process. I am interested in following this cookbook’s suggestions on preparing an onion-lard-paprika dish, so I choose to cook “Potato Paprika” for this blog.

I made this pretty much as the recipe above.

Potato Paprika
serves 2-3

1 1/2 pounds potatoes (I used russets but I suggest red or yukon potatoes)
2 tablespoons lard
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon sweet Spanish or Hungarian paprika
1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken or beef stock (or use water)
1/8 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/2 of a green bellpepper, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes for about 10 minutes, then cool, peel, and cut into 1/4-inch slices. (They will not be totally cooked at this point.)

Heat the lard “until a light haze forms over it”, then add the onions and garlic. Cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly colored. Off the heat, stir in the paprika. Stir until the onions are well coated. Return the pan to the heat, add 1 cup of stock (or water), and bring to a boil. Add the caraway seeds, potatoes, tomato, green pepper, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Simmer about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and the liquid evaporated. If the liquid evaporates before the potatoes are done, add more stock or water as necessary.

Here is my Potato Paprika, during the cooking. By the time I served this dish, most of the liquid had evaporated.

These were good. To me, they had a hint of Middle Eastern flavors. I had a problem with my potatoes, since I chose big russets and the initial 10-minute cooking left them raw in the middle (as in, very hard). I had to cook my Potatoes Paprika a long time, almost an hour. I have changed my version of the recipe to reflect this suggestion.

Would I make these again? Yes. They are very flavorful and different from all my other recipes for potatoes. And I think they would be really good with sausages added, as the original recipe suggests.

250 Cookbooks: George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Grilling Machine

Posted on October 11, 2015 by admin

Cookbook #130: George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Grilling Machine, Salton, Inc., 2000.
This is the instruction booklet for my George Forman “grilling machine”. I re-discovered this appliance in another blog post: George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine Cookbook. There is a just a handful of recipes in this instruction booklet. But, since it has instructions ffor the grill’s use (including a cooking chart), I will keep it as a reference.

I decide to try “Mustard Lemon Chicken Breasts” for this blog.
These are really simple! If they work, should be nice for a quick meal.

Mustard Lemon Balsamic Chicen Breasts
serves 2-3

2 tablespoons mustard
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
12 ounces boneless chicken breast (I used chicken breast cutlets)

Mix the mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, and paprika. Add the chicken breasts and let marinade at least 30 minutes.

Preheat a Foreman Grill for 5 minutes. Place the marinated chicken on the grill and close the lid. Let cook for 3-4 minutes. (Thick chicken breasts will take a little longer.)

Serve.
I liked these. I put them inside toasted french rolls and added jack cheese, tomatoes, sliced red onion, lettuce and avocado. The chicken was so tasty on its own that I didn’t bother adding mustard or mayonnaise to the rolls. Once again, I am reminded to keep using my Forman Grill!