Candied Kumquats

Do you think your dentist would like these sugar-crusted kumquat candies?

Mine would be horrified.

But if you like foods that have a distinctive contrast — like sweet and salty, sweet and sour, bitter-sweet and so on, you’ll love these too.

Anyway, my neighbor did. He had a “significant” birthday recently. Ed and I were invited to a party at his house but his wife told me “no gifts.” So, no using my Lord & Taylor 20% discount coupon to get him a sweater he would probably return. No using my 20% Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon to get him a knife he might need for fileting his own fish. 

I couldn’t show up empty handed though. So I made some goodies, specifically candied kumquats, which are completely frivolous, certainly not as well-known (and probably not as well loved as, say, chocolate chip cookies) but absolutely spectacular to look at and to eat.

If you’ve never tasted candied kumquats, you’ve missed something special. The fruit is tender and vaguely resilient, the crust crunchy; the flavor is bitter and sweet all at once. Perfect harmony on your tongue.

I thought this made a very interesting birthday gift. But now that it’s Purim, the time to give mishloach manot, little gifts of food to family and friends to celebrate the holiday, I’m thinking Candied Kumquats.

Candied Kumquats

12-16 ounces kumquats (one carton)

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

sugar for coating

Rinse the kumquats and remove any stems. Slice the kumquats in half lengthwise and remove any seeds. Combine the 2 cups sugar and the water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the kumquats, reduce the heat and cook the kumquats at a bare simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover the pan and let stand for at least one hour. Remove the cover, bring the liquid to a boil again over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer the kumquats for 20 minutes. Remove the kumquats with a slotted spoon to sheets of parchment paper (or aluminum foil) to cool. Roll the kumquats in sugar to coat them completely. Store in an airtight container. Makes one pound

Cashew Sesame Seed Candy Bars

Candy for Chinese New Year?

When I think about Chinese food it’s usually Egg Rolls or Sichuan Beef with Orange Flavor or Kung Pao Gai Ding.

Not candy.

In fact, I don’t associate Chinese cuisine with anything sweet or dessert-like. Years ago I took Chinese cooking lessons at the China Institute and my teacher, the great Florence Lin, said that Chinese recipes often have a little sugar in them and so, one’s “sweet tooth” is satisfied by the end of a meal, with no need for any special dessert.

And yet — one of the recipes I learned was one for the kind of Sesame Seed-Nut Brittle I remember my parents buying whenever we visited New York’s Chinatown. It is sweet! And salty too, a nice balance. It’s also crunchy and gets into every tooth. 

It’s also easy to make and lasts a while. 

Happy New Year of the Snake.

Celebrate with candy.

Cashew Sesame Seed Candy Bars

• 1/2 cup sesame seeds

• 1-1/2 cups cashews, broken up

• 2 cups sugar

• 5 tablespoons white vinegar

• 1-1/2 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the sesame seeds in a single layer in a jelly roll pan for about 10 minutes or until lightly toasted (shake the pan once or twice during the baking time). Lightly oil an 8-inch or 9-inch square cake pan. Place half the sesame seeds and all of the cashews in the prepared pan and set aside. Place the sugar, vinegar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir only until the ingredients are well mixed. Continue to cook until the mixture is turning golden and reaches the “hard crack” stage (a drop of the mixture in cold water will be hard and brittle), about 295 degrees on a candy thermometer. Pour the hot syrup over the seeds and nuts. Sprinkle with the remaining sesame seeds. Let cool for a few minutes, until the ingredients are “set.” Cut into bars with a knife. Let cool and harden completely. Recut where the initial cuts have been placed.

Makes 16 pieces

Crusted Mashed Potatoes

Prune or potato?

My mother, who was very funny, always said that when a woman gets old she becomes either a prune or a potato. You know, she gets thin, frail, fragile and wrinkled or, um, plump and not so frail or fragile (and not so wrinkled).

I like prunes. The dried plums and also some people I know who are senior citizens and slim, whom my mother would regard as prunes.

But potatoes! What can I say?! To me, there is nothing better than a potato, except maybe a cup of hot coffee, but that isn’t food.

Potato. Every kind, every way. That’s for me. 

Women? Men? I don’t really care about their girth or lack thereof.

Give me a potato to eat and I’m happy.

Today, National Potato Lover’s Day, seems made for me, don’t you think?

I’m having potatoes with dinner.

These:

CRUSTED MASHED POTATOES

5 medium all-purpose potatoes such as Yukon Gold

1/4 cup olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable stock

salt to taste

pinch or two of cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and cook them in lightly salted water for about 15 minutes, or until they are fork tender. While the potatoes are cooking, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, or until the vegetables are beginning to brown. Set aside. Drain the potatoes and mash them with a ricer or potato masher until the lumps have disappeared. Add the vegetables and olive oil and stir them in gently. Stir in the lemon juice, stock, salt and the cayenne pepper. Place the mixture in a baking dish. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the top is crispy and brown.

Makes 6 servings

 

Brussels Sprouts with Tangerine and Hazelnuts

I may have mentioned that long, long ago my husband Ed once told me that if I ever cooked Brussels sprouts he would divorce me. 

Just kidding of course, which is why I felt confident to cook up some of these tiny cabbages once when I had to write an article about them. I made several recipes in one day figuring I would get the aroma and arguments all over with in one swoop, as they say.

But surprise of surprises! He liked them! All of them. Every version I made.

So it just goes to show that sometimes you might actually like something you thought you hated if you try it again.

Maybe.

The thing about Brussels sprouts, like all cabbages, is that they can produce an awful smell, especially if you cook them too long, which is what so many cooks did in the days that Ed’s and my mom cooked vegetables. So we grew up believing vegetables should be mushy, army green and, if in the cabbage family, smelly.

No more of that.

This recipe for Brussels sprouts has a small amount of maple and sweet tangerine to tone down the bitter cabbage. 

Brussels Sprouts with Tangerine and Hazelnuts

• 16-18 Brussels sprouts (about 12 ounces)

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1/2 cup tangerine juice (or use orange juice)

• 2 tablespoons maple syrup

• 2 teaspoons grated tangerine peel (or use orange peel)

• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the Brussels sprouts in half, rinse them, then drain and dry on paper towels. Place the vegetable oil, tangerine juice, maple syrup and tangerine peel in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until slightly thickened. Place the Brussels sprouts in a roasting pan and pour the tangerine mixture on top. Toss to coat the vegetables evenly.* Place the pan in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes or until tender. Mix once during this time. Remove the Brussels sprouts from the oven, toss with the hazelnuts and sprinkle to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 4 servings

*Can prepare ahead to here

Roast Beef Hash

Did I really do this? Did I actually pay $.99 apiece for duck eggs? Just because I haven’t eaten a duck egg in years and they were sitting there, lovely looking and daring me to choose my favorites, as if any of them looked any different from any of the others? Tempting me, the way the gum and candy tempt kids while their caretakers wait with them on the checkout line at the supermarket? 

Yep. I did it. Bought four of them. 

When you pay that much for eggs, I think you should eat them like eggs. I mean, for themselves and not mixed into something like a cake or pancake batter. 

That’s what I did. Sunnysides, right on top of roast beef hash, which is a perfect counterpoint for two reasons. First, because when it comes to taste, the runny egg yolks ooze into the crispy meat and vegetables and gives all the crusty stuff a memorably voluptuous feel in your mouth. And second, hash uses up leftovers, which is a frugal way to balance the price of those eggs.

Roast Beef Hash

2 cups diced (1/4-inch cubes) Yukon Gold or “new” potatoes 

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups diced mushrooms (1/4-inch cubes)

2 cups diced cold roast beef (1/4-inch cubes)

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped

1/8 teaspoon cayenne, pepper

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 cup frozen peas

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup beef or vegetable stock

4-8 Sunnyside eggs if desired

Bring a pan of water to a boil, add the potatoes, cook for 3 minutes and drain. Heat the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 8 minutes or until the cubes are beginning to crisp and brown. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes or until soft and beginning to brown. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 2 minutes. Stir in the beef and season with the thyme, cayenne pepper and some salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peas and parsley, mix, and pour in the stock. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, turning the hash occasionally and loosening any browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Cook for 8-10 minutes or until the hash is crispy and the liquid has evaporated. Serve with Sunnyside eggs, if desired. Makes 4 servings

Bones and Vegetable Soup

A friend of mine, who is not Jewish, asked me how to make “real Jewish chicken soup.” I gave him my recipe, which he said was similar to his mother’s Italian version (except mine included dill).

But when I saw him a few days later he was dismayed about the soup. He said it tasted better than delicious but that when it was cold it got all gelled up and jiggly. His mother’s soup never did that.

Ah. Gelled liquid. The sign of great soup. Soup made with bones. Bones with collagen that melts slowly and surely and enriches the broth, giving it abundant, old fashioned flavor. Soup broth the way it’s supposed to be.

Memorable.

My friend was thrilled he hadn’t made a mistake. He smiled when I told him his soup was probably better than his mama’s.

Robbie’s success got me to thinking about making some soup of course. And fortunately I had just the right ingredients: chicken bones. Almost four pounds of them, from KOL Foods.

KOL Foods produces Glatt kosher poultry, beef and lamb and brings a new level of humanity to the way they treat their stock. For any meat to be kosher, the animals must be slaughtered in a particular — humane — way. KOL Foods upped the standard. Their animals are raised humanely too, with an eye toward sustainability. The chickens, turkey and ducks are free-roaming and fed an organic, GMO-free, vegetarian diet; they are not given arsenic, antibiotics or hormones.

The company has an eye for your budget too. Poultry can be expensive and kosher poultry even more so.

Hence the chicken bones, which the company sells in packages for shipment and are a lot cheaper than whole chickens or parts. The bones deliver a delicious broth and there’s enough meat on them to make a filling dish. My almost 4 pounds of bones yielded more than 3 cups of cut up meat.

This is the soup I made with them: rich, rib-sticking, comforting and wonderful. The liquid gels when it’s chilled. The way it’s supposed to.

Bones and Vegetable Soup

3-4 pounds meaty chicken bones

12 cups water

2/3 cup barley

2 onions, sliced

1/2 cup dried mushroom pieces, soaked, softened and chopped

3-4 carrots, sliced

2-3 stalks celery, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

8 sprigs fresh dill

6 sprigs fresh parsley

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained

1 small zucchini, diced

1 cup frozen peas

Place the chicken in a soup pot and cover with the water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and for the next several minutes, discard the debris that comes to the surface. Add the barley, onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery, parsnips, dill, parsley and salt and pepper. Simmer, partially covered, for one hour. Add the beans, zucchini and peas and cook for another 50-60 minutes. Remove the bones and cut off bits of chicken; place the chicken meat back into the soup. Discard the bones.

Makes 8 servings

Blue Cheese and Almond Stuffed Dates

Here’s a quickie hors d’oeuvre you can make if you’re having people over the watch the Superbowl. I’m actually bringing some to my brother Jeff’s house. He and Eileen always are the Superbowl hosts and we usually don’t eat real dinner until much later than we get there, so we need some nibbles for the pre-game show and the pre-pre-game stuff.

These take about 5 minutes to make and best of all, you can eat them as is or heat them in a 375 degree oven until they’re hot.

Blue Cheese and Almond Stuffed Dates

24 large dates, preferably Medjool

1/2 cup blue veined cheese 

1/4 cup chopped smoked almonds

3 tablespoons brandy

Slit the dates open lengthwise and remove the pits. Combine the cheese, almonds and brandy in a small bowl and mix to blend them. Use equal portions of the cheese mixture to stuff the insides of the dates. Eat as is OR, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the stuffed dates on a cookie sheet and bake for 2-3 minutes or until just hot. Can be prepared ahead up to the point of heating. Makes 24

Excellent short article, highly recommended!

shiracoffee:

Why Do Grandmothers Exist?

BY JUDITH SHULEVITZ (in the New Republic)

The value of grandmas.

AMEN!

Corn Fritters

Of the many, many virtues of pancakes, one of the most important is that you can make them in all sorts of shapes, not just circles (and even then you can make enormous circles or tiny silver dollar size and every other size in between).

So last weekend when my grand daughter Nina was over and I made a batch of corn pancakes, Ed took some of the batter and made it into a big N for Nina and of course she was delighted with it.

Another good thing about this pancake is that you could turn it around and make it into a Z, for Zev, our grandson (Nina’s brother). She enjoyed noticing that too. But we kept it N and that’s the way she had it with a little maple syrup poured on top.

Corn Fritters

2 tablespoons butter

1 large egg

1 cup milk

2 cups cooked corn kernels 

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

2 tablespoons chopped chives, optional

butter/vegetable oil for frying

maple syrup, optonal

Melt the butter and set it aside to cool. In a bowl, beat the egg and milk together. Stir in the cooled melted butter and the corn kernels. In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt; add this to the corn mixture and stir ingredients gently to blend them together. Stir in the chives, if used. Heat enough butter and/or vegetable oil in a saute pan over medium heat. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, drop the corn batter by the 1/4-cupful. Cook for about 2 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface and the bottom has browned. Flip the pancakes and cook for another minutes or until the second side is brown. Drain on paper towels and serve with maple syrup if desired. Makes 6-8 servings

Braised String Beans with Tomatoes

When my husband Ed asks for seconds on a vegetable side dish I know I’ve got a good recipe.

The other evening I cooked this string bean and tomato dish. We are so used to eating crispy, tender-but-still-firm vegetables that this dish, with its softer side, was a surprise wonder. Not that the vegetables are soft and mushy like people used to make them (I have a cookbook from the 1930s that instructed the reader to cook string beans for 45 minutes!). But they are not crunchy either.

I served this with chicken, but it could be a good part of a vegetarian meal or a meatless Monday meal. It would go well with mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower or cooked egg noodles, polenta, mushroom ragout and such. It would also be a good accompaniment to scrambled eggs.

String Beans with Tomatoes

1 pound green string beans

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 medium tomatoes, or 4 plum tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Rinse the string beans, cut the ends off and cut the beans into 1-1/2 to 2-inch pieces. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion and green beans and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook briefly. Cover the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the beans are almost tender. Add the tomatoes, parsley, salt and sugar and stir the ingredients to mix them evenly. Sprinkle with the cayenne pepper. Cover and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the vegetables are soft. Sprinkle with the lemon juice. Makes 4 servings