Chocolate Strawberry Pavlova

Why hello there! It's been a couple of weeks. I have a few Paris posts for you, but I have to get some pictures together, some thoughts, and all the rest. I have a few posts to share before that anyway, though. Things I ran out of time for before I left.

Such as this Chocolate Strawberry Pavlova from Nigella. R used to live in New Zealand, and since then has been pretty anti-pavlova for reasons I don't quite understand (something about them being too sweet, waa waa waa). Good thing I make a point of never listening to him when it comes to food. We both loved this, as did our friends who were over for dinner (at least, they said they did, and they'll stick with that if they want a repeat invitation!).

This is not hard. There are things you have to do to make sure your egg whites beat up, but it's really not rocket science. You do have to do it in steps, though, because the meringue base must cool in a cracked oven, so factor in some time for that. Here are a few tips:

* Bring your eggs to room temperature first. Either take them out of the fridge the day before, or set them in warm water for a few moments before you're ready to use them.

* Make sure all of your equipment is clean and totally free of any grease that could stand in the way of fluffy egg whites.

* This is easy, so don't worry about it. Egg whites smell fear.

Since I'm still a little jet lagged, we're going to call this introduction good and get on with it.

Chocolate Strawberry Pavlova

Very slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer

For the meringue:

6 egg whites (see notes above)

1 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 teaspoon balsamic or red wine vinegar

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Preheate the oven to 350 F. Using a 9" cake pan, trace a 9" circle onto a sheet of parchment paper, to use as a guide when you pile up your meringue for baking. Place the parchment paper, pencil side down (you should be able to see through it) on a baking sheet and set aside.

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then beat in the sugar spoonful by spoonful. The meringue should become stiff and shimmery. Sprinkle the cocoa powder, vinegar and chopped chocolate over the top, then fold into the egg whites. Mound the meringue on your baking sheet, using your traced circle as a guide.

Place in the oven, and immediately turn the heat down to 300 F. Bake for 1 to 1:15 hours. The meringue should look crisp around the edges, but remain a little squishy in the center. Turn the oven off, and leave the door slightly ajar until the meringue has cooled completely.

For the topping

2 1/4 cups heavy cream

1 pint strawberries (or raspberries or any berries!), sliced and hulled

2-3 tablespoons grated (with a vegetable peeler) bittersweet chocolate

Just before serving, beat the cream until it becomes whipped cream. Transfer the meringue disk onto a serving dish, mound the whipped cream on top and arrange the berries on top of that. Sprinkle with the chocolate shavings and serve.

Postcards from Paris

Away

I'm going to be in Paris for the next two weeks, digging through the archives at the Louvre and at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Rennes. I'll try to take pictures and think food while I'm there. See ya in two weeks!

Low Fat Carrot Bread with Vaguely Eastern Flavors

That's right, this bread doesn't quite know what it is, but it has a feeling it's not from around here. It started with an entire vat of leftover Moroccan Carrot Salad that, no matter how much eating occurred, never seemed to diminish. One way we know of to get rid of such obstinate vegetables is to plop them into some kind of baked good. So there you have it.

The carrot salad is already flavored, macerated with sugar and lemon juice, and spiked with a little kewra water. I'd seen a recipe or two that suggested vanilla as a subsitute for kewra, although they do completely different things. But I figured it could go the other way around in this bread. And it did. And it was great. Consumed in one and a half days around here, this is a great thing to do with leftover carrot salad. Of course, you don't have to wait for leftovers. You could just grate some carrots and not even necessarily bother macerating them at all.

The bread ended up having this incredible, crunchy, almost caramelized crust, while staying nice and juicy (I can explain) inside. Juicy being, by the way, R's term because there's just something about the word "moist" that makes me cringe. Of course *juicy* doesn't make a bit of sense, but it's kind of funny. And I like the idea of a juicy carrot bread.

Low Fat Carrot Bread with Vaguely Eastern Flavors

A Cooking Books Original

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup low-fat plain yogurt (I use fat free greek yogurt)

1 large egg

1 teaspoon kewa water (or use vanilla if you don't have this)

2 tablespoons canola, or other flavorless oil

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease an 8" x 5" loaf pan. In a bowl, combine the flour, carrots, sugar, cardamom, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix to combine. In a separate bowl combine the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine those as well. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45 - 50 minutes.

White Gazpacho with Grapes, Málaga Style

I know you know all about red gazpacho. That liquified salad, which calls itself a meal because at it's base, the salad has been thrown into the blender along with the side of bread. It can be spicy or mild, smooth or chunky, and always refreshing. But for a great red gazpacho, you need great red tomatoes (okay, any tomatoes, as long as they're great). For now, we're still stuck with hot house tomatoes, and those just will not do. So red gazpacho has to wait it's turn, even if the summer heat practically demands its appearance.

I have good news. There's another kind of gazpacho. A white kind, with no tomatoes. It's still a meal, because you still include that side of bread, but it's creamier, by far. A little thinner, and milky white. Its flavor reminds me a bit of buttermilk, but without the curdling flavor. There's almonds and garlic (raw garlic), salt and a little vinegar. It's garnished with homemade croutons that have been toasted in more garlic and plenty of butter, and finished with a handful of fresh, juicy green grapes. It's even better than it sounds.

At first I was a little unsure. What are grapes doing, after all, in my chilled savory soup? Plenty, as it turns out, because green grapes are a little bit tart and play so well with the slightly vinegary soup. I really do think you're going to like this one.

White Gazpacho with Grapes

From The Foods & Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas

4 ounces blanched almonds

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 slices day-old bread, crusts removed

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

4 cups ice water

croutons (follows)

Seedless green grapes, peeled (yea right)

Put the almonds, garlic and salt into the bowl of a food processor and process until the almonds are finely ground. In the meantime, soak the bread in cold water so that it's good and saturated. Ring the bread out to extract any extra moisture, and with the motor running on the processor, add the bread. Pour in the oil in a thin stream, as well as the vinegar. You might have to scrape down the sides of the bowl at this point. With the motor still running, add 1 cup of the ice water and process until everything is well combined.

Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and add the rest of the ice water. Stir to combine. You can strain if you'd like, but with food processors these days, it's not altogether necessary. Chill and serve cold, topped with croutons and grapes.

For the Croutons

2 tablespoons butter

1 clove garlic, crushed

6 slices white bread, crusts removed, torn into small cubes.

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the crushed garlic. Cook for just a moment, then throw in the bread cubes. Stir them to coat with butter and garlic. Toast the bread over a very low flame for about 30 minutes, until the bread is golden brown and crunchy. You'll need to stir occasionally. Cool.

Notes:

Do NOT skip the grapes. They're not decoration since they drop straight to the bottom, but are essential to the soup's flavor. You've been warned.

Bisteeya, Moroccan Pigeon (but in this case chicken) Pie

Paula Wolfert, in Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco describes the traditional bisteeya of Fez as a 20 inch pigeon pie, bursting with two dozen eggs, layers of squab or chicken and sweetened almonds, all encased in the "tissue-thin pastry leaves called warka." This dish she calls "so grand, so lavish and so rich" you would think it would take weeks to prepare. In her memoir My Kitchen Wars by Betty Fussell, she claims to have made the bisteeya from Paula Wolfert "for which you roasted and boned a dozen squab, seasoning them with ginger and saffron and turmeric and cinnamon and ground almonds and beaten eggs and cupfuls of butter." But, as seems to be her way, Fussell exaggerates since the Wolfert recipe merely calls for 6 squab, or the substitution of 5 pounds of chicken legs and thighs.

Wolfert also provides the recipe, and more importantly the process for warka, a Persian pastry not unlike phyllo. And unless you're truly crazy, or just that much of an overachiever, you'll stick to phyllo. In the interest of authenticity, Wolfert provides 23 pages on the history of bisteeya, as well as the method for making warka and several variations on the pie. That, is a lot of information. It doesn't have to be quite that hard.

This recipe, from Rose Dosti's Middle Eastern Cooking seems just as authentic, is surely just as as tasty, and is scaled down to fit into a 10" skillet. It still takes quite a bit of time, but is somehow much less intimidating. She calls for only one 2 1/2 pound chicken, cut up, rather than half a dozen pigeons (which, although plentiful on the streets of New York, aren't as common in the grocery stores). And I have to tell you, I used two chicken breasts with skin and bone still intact, and two thighs, also with skin and bones.

When working with fillo, you should try to keep the sheets moist while you're not working with them. So once they've been unfurled from their package, cover them with a damp cloth. Be gentle as you brush the butter on the sheets so you don't tear them. Otherwise, they're not hard to deal with at all.

Chicken Bisteeya

From Rose Dosti's Middle Eastern Cooking

1 2 1/2 pound chicken, cut up, or 2 breasts and 2 thighs, with skin and bones

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons oil (she recommends peanut)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups chicken broth or water

Pinch of saffron threads

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

8 large eggs, beaten

2 cups almonds, toasted and ground

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

7 fillo sheets

1/4 cup butter, clarified (this was just barely enough)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Ground cinnamon for garnish

Place the chicken pieces in a large skillet and season with salt and pepper. Pour the oil over and add the onion and broth or water, as well as the saffron. Give it a quick stir, then bring the liquid to a boil. Add the cinnamon stick, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer over low for 1 hour. Chicken should be tender.

Remove the chicken, but reserve one cup of the broth and discard the cinnamon stick. Allow the chicken to cool, then remove it from the bones and discard the skin. Shred the chicken, using two forks pulling the chicken in opposite ways. Return the one cup of broth to the skillet and bring to a boil. Add the parsley and cilantro, and simmer, uncovered, over low heat for about 3 minutes.

Add the beaten eggs to the broth, and cook and stir them until they're scrambled and the liquid has been absorbed. Remove the eggs from the heat and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the ground almonds, the granulated sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon. Set that aside as well. Preheat your oven to 350 F and butter a 10" oven-proof skillet with rounded sides.

You're going to place 4 fillo sheets in the bottom of the skillet, and as you do, brush the top of each sheet with a bit of the clarified butter. Stack the sheets in different orientations so the entire bottom of the pan is covered. Leave a 5 to 6" overhang. Sprinkle a third of the almond mixture over the sheets, then top that with half of the shredded chicken. Top with another third of almond mixture, then place half of the egg mixture over that. One more layer of chicken goes over that, then the last half of the eggs. End with the final third of the almond mixture.

Fold the overhanging edges of the fillo dough over the mixture and smooth down the creases as best you can. Top with the remaining 3 fillo sheets in the same manner, brushing each with clarified butter. Fold the overhanging edges of the top sheets under the pie.

Bake the pie for 25 to 35 minutes until the dough is golden brown and it's heated through. Cool slightly, then slide it onto a platter. If that feels too dangerous, just leave it, what the heck. Sprinkle with the powdered sugar and top with some cinnamon for garnish. Cut into wedges and serve. This makes 6-8 servings.

Moroccan Grated Carrot Salad

If there's one thing that's endlessly fascinating about Indian and Southeast Asian cooking, it's those fragrant waters such as rose, orange blossom, and the much less well-known (in North American, that is) Kewra or Kevda water. Kewra water is a distilled extract from pandanus flowers, and it's commonly used to flavor sweets such a barfi (something like an Indian fudge) and rassomalai, as well as to add fragrance to meats, drinks, and rice dishes such as biryanis. You can use it as a substitute for rose water, but in this case, it was put to work in place of orange blossom water.

It's a strange occurrence when you realize you're out of orange blossom water, but have the even more obscure kewra languishing, unopened, in the cupboard. It's the result of impulse buys at Indian markets, and luckily, worked very well in this salad. Like orange blossom water, you don't exactly taste kewra. Rather, you sense it at the back of the throat as you breathe in, a subtle hint of fragrance, there and then gone.

Grated Carrot Salad

From Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco

7 large carrots, peeled and grated

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

Orange flower water (or, in this case, kewra water), for sprinkling

Pinch of salt

Mix all the ingredients together and let marinate for 1 hour before serving.

Braised Zucchini Wheels with Almond-Mint Pesto

John Thorne once accused zucchini of having "the nutritional value, flavor and texture of rained-on newspaper" and of being able to claim the dubious virtue of being growable by anyone, in overwhelming abundance. Harsh words for such an innocent little squash, and in my opinion, totally unwarranted. After all, "watery" is just a disparaging term for "juicy" and sure, its flavor may not be particularly assertive, but that adds to its versatility. As for the nutritional value, I stand by my own completely unfounded idea that anything grown out of the ground and messed around with only a little, has to be good for you.

Of course, I haven't met a vegetable that doesn't profit from a little stuffing. Especially stuffing with a mixture of almonds, breadcrumbs, lemon, garlic and mint. Plus, they're so darn cute, splitting down the middle like little baskets just trying to hold in all of that stuff. I made a few alterations to the recipe, as tends to happen. For one thing, I left out the 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds called for in the pesto because I didn't have any. Out of guilt, and to make up for it, I anointed them with grated parmesan cheese and quickly ran them under the broiler at the end. You know, for crispiness and meltiness and such. I would also recommend adding a little salt and pepper to the pesto mixture before braising. But after those changes, you're all set to go.

Braised Zucchini Wheels with Almond-Mint Pesto

Adopted from a recipe in Vegetarian Times, July/August 2009

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (I used panko)

1/3 cup whole almonds

2 garlic cloves, peeled

2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

4 medium zucchini (about 2 pounds total), cut into 4 wheels each

Sprinkling of parmesan cheese

In a food processor, chop the first 6 ingredients until coarse. Add the oil and the salt and pepper to taste, and pulse a couple of times until you get the consistency of a chunky pesto.

Cut an X into each wheel, to within about 1/2 inch of the bottom. Be careful not to cut straight through. Pry the wheels apart, and scoop about 1 teaspoon of pesto into each.

Arrange the wheels in a 10" oven-proof skillet, and add 1 cup of water to the bottom of the pan. Bring the liquid to a simmer over medium heat, then cover and cook for 20 minutes. The zucchini should be tender. Preheat the broiler.

Remove the zucchini from the heat and sprinkle with the parmesan cheese. Run the pan under the broiler for 3-5 minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve.

Avocado-Grapefruit Cream

In the US, the idea of avocado as a sweet is something outside the realm of most of our experience. But in Brazil, creme de abacate is quite popular, whipped folds of bright green avocado spiked with a myriad of flavors. You might resist at first, but stop for a moment and think about that buttery texture, the subtly sweet flavor (it is, after all, technically a fruit), and I have a feeling your defenses might start to fall.

I've seen a couple of avocado cream recipes, most are brightened with lime juice, some are sweetened with brown or white sugar, thinned with milk or half-and-half and a bit of port, garnished with mint or lemon. Not far from avocado ice cream, if you wanted a dessert even more redolent of summer, you might beat in whipping cream instead of the wine and freeze like ice cream. Or you could heap the avocado cream into a baking dish and top it with homemade meringue and bake like a more exotic lemon-meringue pie.

The recipe below, however, does something truly wonderful to the avocado. While, as I said, lime makes an appearance in most recipes, in Betty Fussell's version, she beats half a grapefruit into the avocado. The grapefruit's tartness cuts right through the avocado's rich cream, and you're left with the kind of silky, mouth-filling experience normally reserved for only the richest cheesecake. A note of warning, you must actually like grapefruit to appreciate this preparation. R, unfortunately, does not. And so, was not impressed. At least, not in the way I was. Since trying this version, I've begun to crave it. I dream of it at night, and begin beating grapefruit and avocado first thing in the morning. It's meant to serve 2 - 4 people, but I assume this is when it's served after a meal, rather than in place of one. Because I can polish off the whole batch in one sitting.

I maintain that you must have a deep love for citrus if you're going to be convinced by this. And if you go into the thing not open to the tartness of the grapefruit, you may as well skip it. But if a lemon bar is more tempting to you, as it is to me, than a bar of chocolate, then you're in for a treat.

Avocado-Grapefruit Cream

From Betty Fussell's Food in Good Season

1/2 grapefruit

1 ripe avocado

juice of 1 lime (more or less, to taste)

2 - 3 tablespoons honey

Remove the grapefruit sections from the peel and put them in either a food processor or blender. Cut the avocado in half, remove the fruit from both halves and add it to the blender, along with the juice of 1 lime and 2 tablespoons of honey. Blend well until smooth. Add another tablespoon of honey if you need it. I definitely did not.