food post

There's a lot I've been wanting to post about, so I'm going to divide posts up roughly by subject. This one's about cooking and baking.

I haven't been doing much wildly interesting cooking lately--for reasons of economy there's been a lot of "grain plus whatever vegetables are around plus some beans or maybe cheese." That sort of thing can be quite nice, of course, though I notice that all these healthy whole grains and vegetables are a lot, er, more challenging on the digestion than foods that are supposedly bad for you.

Moving right along--when I've eaten meat I've been stretching it by making meatballs (with lots of breadcrumbs), soup (I made avgolemono for the first time), and so on.

Luckily I hoarded food like crazy stocked up my pantry pretty well before the last few months of not-much-money, because it's a lot easier to eat decently through a rough patch if you have some meat (bought in quantity when it was on sale) in the freezer and cupboards full of rice and couscous and bulgur and spices and dried shiitake mushrooms and those jarred preserved lemons that were so cheap at Trader Joe's that one time.


I'm still trying to perfect my homemade yogurt. It tastes fine, but the texture can be a little grainy sometimes--not curdled, but slightly on the road to it. Adding a little powdered milk helps and so does not heating the milk too hot. Anybody have further advice on this score?

( Really, making yogurt is even simpler than people claim it is. )

Making yogurt has, naturally, made me want to experiment with making my own cheese. Mozzarella seems to be quite easy (and definitely a case where you'll not only save money by doing it yourself, you'll get a better product) and I'm planning to try it as soon as I have the money to buy the rennet and citric acid that's required.

I also have plans, sometime in the next month or so, to make my own preserved lemons and pickles, both of these from recipes in Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Jerusalem cookbook. (Yes, I do fantasize about being one of those people who cure their own hams and make their own sausages from home-raised pigs, and make preserves with fruit from their own trees, and brew their own beer, and so on. If I could just find someone who wanted to do all the actual farming so I could stay indoors, away from the hot sun, and make delicious things . . . )


In baking news, I've finally found a focaccia recipe I like. It's from the Ottolenghi cookbook--I am still enthralled by all of Yotam Ottolenghi's books--with modifications by me. Below it the original recipe, with my changes afterwards.

( recipe here )

Now that I'm growing more comfortable with baking (a few years ago I was scared of baking and convinced I'd never be any good at it), I'm getting a bit more ambitious. Recently, to use up some chocolate the really needed using up because of the hot weather, I made another Ottolenghi recipe, Chocolate Krantz Cake. This is a rich yeasted dough that is rolled out flat, covered with chocolate and nuts, rolled up like a jelly roll, and then cut lengthwise in half and braided before baking. Oh, and then you pour sugar syrup over the finished cake. But it's actually not that difficult, and it's impressive and delicious. The recipe is reprinted here (the Ottolenghi website has the ingredient list but not the method, because they would quite like you to buy the book, and indeed all the Ottolenghi cookbooks are worth having). Do not, however, follow the blogger's recommendation to cut the amount of syrup. The cakes will absorb all the syrup and will not dissolve into mush. Brush the syrup over at a moderate pace. You'll get pools of syrup in the pan, but as the cakes cool they'll suck it all up and be moist and lovely.

My only suggestion is that if your kitchen is warm, it's a good idea to refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes or so after it's been rolled up but before cutting and braiding. Otherwise it will stretch a lot and you'll end up with a loaf that's too long for your pan. (If it happens, just cut the loaf in half and tuck them both in the pan side by side.)

I filled one cake according to the recipe, and for the other I substituted sesame seeds (toasted and coarsely ground to a chunky powder) for the walnuts. This tasted delicious but the sesame seeds were dry enough that that layers didn't hold together during braiding--next time I'll mix the sesame seeds into the chocolate. Or possibly use tahini mixed with sugar, because how luscious would that be?

It's worth making the whole recipe and getting two cakes, because while it's not hard it is rather a lot of work and the cakes freeze well. I recommend freezing the extra in portions that you can finish within a day or so, though, because it does go a bit stale if it sits out for longer than that.



What have you all been cooking? Read any good cookbooks lately? Eaten anything delicious? Mmm, food.