recipe weekend
Oct. 22nd, 2017 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkit1) Something I've cooked recently
Yesterday, inspired by a pie that somebody (I can't remember who, Wikipedia isn't helping, and I'm too lazy to go back and rewatch) made on this year's Great British Bake Off, I made a butternut squash and blue cheese pie that turned out fairly well. The flavor is great, but I had some Onion Issues.
Pastry for a double crust:
300 g all-purpose aka plain flour
113 g (1 US stick) butter, very cold
about 75 g cream cheese, cold
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
ice water
Put the flour, salt, and cream cheese (cut into chunks) in the food processor and pulse until the texture is like cornmeal. Cut the butter into smallish pieces, add to the flour mixture, and pulse until the largest chunks of butter are roughly the size of peas. Remove the flour mix to a bowl, add the cider vinegar and then some ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together. Cut off about 1/3 of the dough, form both pieces into disks (smoothing the edges as much as possible by rolling them along the counter), wrap or cover them to keep them from drying out and refrigerate.
For the filling:
1 really enormous butternut squash or a couple of smaller ones, about 4 pounds before peeling etc.
2 large yellow onions if you're caramelizing, 1 if you're not
Roughly 6 oz/180 g blue cheese of your choice (I had 2 kinds, a mild creamy one and a strong crumbly one, and used a bit of both)
About 1/2 teaspoon smoked hot paprika
A few tablespoons cream
1 beaten egg, some of which will be used for the pastry crust
Peel the squash and cut it into bite-size chunks, put it on a couple of roasting pans, sprinkle with salt, drizzle some oil over (don't use canola oil as it can give a fishy taste!), mixing the pieces in the oil to coat, and roast at 400 Fahrenheit until the pieces are tender and beginning to brown. Let cool.
Meanwhile, chop the onion(s) and either caramelize if you're feeling ambitious, or just cook gently in a bit of butter or olive oil and a little salt until it's tender and fairly sweet. Let cool.
Mix the squash, onion, blue cheese in smallish chunks, paprika, just enough cream to slightly moisten--there should not be a pool of cream on the bottom of the bowl--and about 3/4 of the beaten egg and set aside. If you've lightly salted the onion and squash while cooking them, you probably won't need more salt.
Roll out the larger pastry and line a 9 or 9.5 inch (22-24 centimeter) glass pie dish with it. Brush the bottom lightly with the beaten egg. Add the filling, then roll out the top crust and cover the dish, crimping the two layers together. Cut four slits in the top crust to let steam escape. Brush the top lightly with beaten egg and bake in a preheated 375 Fahrenheit/190 Celsius oven for about 40-45 minutes, until the crust is nicely golden brown and crisp. Let cool for as long as you can stand to wait.
Notes: I tried to caramelize my onions, but it took hours and they still weren't soft and brown like they were supposed to be, so I gave up. Also I cut the onions wrong and they were stringy: who knew you're supposed to cut onion slices pole to pole (i.e. parallel to the root and stem ends) and not across the equator? (Probably better to chop the onions, anyway, because otherwise you get big dangly pieces of onion in your pie.) Basically I did the whole caramelizing process wrong; if I ever feel like going through the hassle again, I will try the improved method recommended by Serious Eats.
Between dealing with the squash and trying to caramelize the onions, this was pretty time-consuming. For a quicker version, you could use the packaged, peeled and cut butternut squash available in a lot of supermarkets.
I put some thyme leaves in the pastry but I don't think they really added anything.
To help make sure the bottom crust is properly cooked and not soggy, it's a good idea to put an upside-down rimmed cookie sheet on the rack while your oven is preheating, then place the pie on the hot sheet. Or use a baking stone if you have one.
I thought about adding bacon but I was afraid the flavor would get lost. Maybe next time, though.
Today, inspired by a craving for soup, a craving for veggies, and a feeling that I should really use my bag of bonito flakes that is three months past its sell-by date, I'm cooking a soup of vegetables and eggs simmered in dashi. Right now I'm simmering the eggs in some dashi flavored with Japanese light (light-colored) soy sauce and some sherry (I didn't have mirin or sake). When the eggs are ready, I'm going to simmer yellow squash, some butternut squash chunks I didn't roast yesterday, a sweet potato, maybe some regular potato, and some Chinese cabbage in plain dashi and then add the simmered eggs--I'll keep their simmering liquid to eat with noodles another time--and some miso paste at the end. No tofu, alas, because I forgot to buy any, but basically this is a cross between a Korean soybean paste stew and a Japanese oden, and to further disrespect both traditions I'm probably going to eat it with soba noodles. I expect it to be deliciously wrong.
The last sweet baking I did was this upside-down pear gingerbread. I mostly followed the recipe, apart from adjusting the spices (more powdered ginger, no cinnamon, and a little nutmeg) and using blackstrap molasses. Blackstrap is the kind that recipes advise you not to use, because it's less sweet and more bitter and mineral-y than normal molasses. But I had some that needed using up, and I actually really liked the result. If, like me, you tend to find cakes too sweet, that's the way to go. The cake freezes quite well, by the way.
2) Something I have concrete plans to cook in the near future:
This fantastic apple cake, probably next weekend.
3) Something I vaguely intend to cook someday:
More apple things, such as apple dumplings, which I have longed to make for years but never have because I did not own an apple corer. But I do now!
I need to figure out some kind of way to use the peach-and-cherry compote that's taking up space in my freezer. And I should make a pie with the jars of sour cherries I bought a while back because they were cheap.
Plus I want to make all the soups and all the savory pies. I'm feeling enthusiastic about late autumn and winter cooking.
Yesterday, inspired by a pie that somebody (I can't remember who, Wikipedia isn't helping, and I'm too lazy to go back and rewatch) made on this year's Great British Bake Off, I made a butternut squash and blue cheese pie that turned out fairly well. The flavor is great, but I had some Onion Issues.
Pastry for a double crust:
300 g all-purpose aka plain flour
113 g (1 US stick) butter, very cold
about 75 g cream cheese, cold
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
ice water
Put the flour, salt, and cream cheese (cut into chunks) in the food processor and pulse until the texture is like cornmeal. Cut the butter into smallish pieces, add to the flour mixture, and pulse until the largest chunks of butter are roughly the size of peas. Remove the flour mix to a bowl, add the cider vinegar and then some ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together. Cut off about 1/3 of the dough, form both pieces into disks (smoothing the edges as much as possible by rolling them along the counter), wrap or cover them to keep them from drying out and refrigerate.
For the filling:
1 really enormous butternut squash or a couple of smaller ones, about 4 pounds before peeling etc.
2 large yellow onions if you're caramelizing, 1 if you're not
Roughly 6 oz/180 g blue cheese of your choice (I had 2 kinds, a mild creamy one and a strong crumbly one, and used a bit of both)
About 1/2 teaspoon smoked hot paprika
A few tablespoons cream
1 beaten egg, some of which will be used for the pastry crust
Peel the squash and cut it into bite-size chunks, put it on a couple of roasting pans, sprinkle with salt, drizzle some oil over (don't use canola oil as it can give a fishy taste!), mixing the pieces in the oil to coat, and roast at 400 Fahrenheit until the pieces are tender and beginning to brown. Let cool.
Meanwhile, chop the onion(s) and either caramelize if you're feeling ambitious, or just cook gently in a bit of butter or olive oil and a little salt until it's tender and fairly sweet. Let cool.
Mix the squash, onion, blue cheese in smallish chunks, paprika, just enough cream to slightly moisten--there should not be a pool of cream on the bottom of the bowl--and about 3/4 of the beaten egg and set aside. If you've lightly salted the onion and squash while cooking them, you probably won't need more salt.
Roll out the larger pastry and line a 9 or 9.5 inch (22-24 centimeter) glass pie dish with it. Brush the bottom lightly with the beaten egg. Add the filling, then roll out the top crust and cover the dish, crimping the two layers together. Cut four slits in the top crust to let steam escape. Brush the top lightly with beaten egg and bake in a preheated 375 Fahrenheit/190 Celsius oven for about 40-45 minutes, until the crust is nicely golden brown and crisp. Let cool for as long as you can stand to wait.
Notes: I tried to caramelize my onions, but it took hours and they still weren't soft and brown like they were supposed to be, so I gave up. Also I cut the onions wrong and they were stringy: who knew you're supposed to cut onion slices pole to pole (i.e. parallel to the root and stem ends) and not across the equator? (Probably better to chop the onions, anyway, because otherwise you get big dangly pieces of onion in your pie.) Basically I did the whole caramelizing process wrong; if I ever feel like going through the hassle again, I will try the improved method recommended by Serious Eats.
Between dealing with the squash and trying to caramelize the onions, this was pretty time-consuming. For a quicker version, you could use the packaged, peeled and cut butternut squash available in a lot of supermarkets.
I put some thyme leaves in the pastry but I don't think they really added anything.
To help make sure the bottom crust is properly cooked and not soggy, it's a good idea to put an upside-down rimmed cookie sheet on the rack while your oven is preheating, then place the pie on the hot sheet. Or use a baking stone if you have one.
I thought about adding bacon but I was afraid the flavor would get lost. Maybe next time, though.
Today, inspired by a craving for soup, a craving for veggies, and a feeling that I should really use my bag of bonito flakes that is three months past its sell-by date, I'm cooking a soup of vegetables and eggs simmered in dashi. Right now I'm simmering the eggs in some dashi flavored with Japanese light (light-colored) soy sauce and some sherry (I didn't have mirin or sake). When the eggs are ready, I'm going to simmer yellow squash, some butternut squash chunks I didn't roast yesterday, a sweet potato, maybe some regular potato, and some Chinese cabbage in plain dashi and then add the simmered eggs--I'll keep their simmering liquid to eat with noodles another time--and some miso paste at the end. No tofu, alas, because I forgot to buy any, but basically this is a cross between a Korean soybean paste stew and a Japanese oden, and to further disrespect both traditions I'm probably going to eat it with soba noodles. I expect it to be deliciously wrong.
The last sweet baking I did was this upside-down pear gingerbread. I mostly followed the recipe, apart from adjusting the spices (more powdered ginger, no cinnamon, and a little nutmeg) and using blackstrap molasses. Blackstrap is the kind that recipes advise you not to use, because it's less sweet and more bitter and mineral-y than normal molasses. But I had some that needed using up, and I actually really liked the result. If, like me, you tend to find cakes too sweet, that's the way to go. The cake freezes quite well, by the way.
2) Something I have concrete plans to cook in the near future:
This fantastic apple cake, probably next weekend.
3) Something I vaguely intend to cook someday:
More apple things, such as apple dumplings, which I have longed to make for years but never have because I did not own an apple corer. But I do now!
I need to figure out some kind of way to use the peach-and-cherry compote that's taking up space in my freezer. And I should make a pie with the jars of sour cherries I bought a while back because they were cheap.
Plus I want to make all the soups and all the savory pies. I'm feeling enthusiastic about late autumn and winter cooking.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-23 09:47 pm (UTC)