Food to Comfort

I never knew how I would deal with loss. I’ve seen others in grieving; some turn reclusive, letting emotions eat away inside, while others let them show outward. I guess I’m lucky to be 21 years old and never have had cause to suffer through grieving emotions. Not everyone I know can say that.

Today I did experience loss; the loss of a pet, our Bailey. My family and I treat our dogs like humans and equals and our attachments to them are enormously strong. The death of Bailey has therefore hit hard. He’s in a better place now, no longer in pain, but it will take a long time before I can get used to walking in the door and seeing only one dog at my feet rather than the normal two.

We cried, sat in silence, and even laughed some as we recounted memories. And then he was buried in the back yard. You can see him from the windows of our back room and our other dog has spent the entire day sitting on the back of the couch and staring at the little mound of dirt in the distance.

Instinctively I turned to cooking as a way to relieve the stress and the emotion. I needed something to do with my hands, something methodical, a mind-numbing cathartic sort of activity. I needed steam to rise from a pot and warm my heart, easing the ache. I needed rich smells to drench me in comforting calm. So I made gnocchi, letting thoughts settle as I rolled each piece mindlessly across a fork. And to go with the gnocchi, a rich beef ragout.

The recipe is here, though I made a few adjustments. I used stewing beef instead of venison and for the gnocchi, I used all-purpose flour, the whole egg, and added a handful of Parmesan to the dough as well. The gnocchi turned out a little gloopy but it didn’t really matter. The beef ragout, however, was deep and multilayered in flavor. The intensity of it brought out a spiciness of sorts and the beef tenderized wonderfully. The onion flavor was strong, but sweet, while nice red wine and bacon added lingering hints of smokiness. I went back for seconds, thirds, letting the warm broth wash away some pain. It was just what we needed after some very long and difficult last few days of eating nothing but peanut butter toast. It by no means solved the problem, but it certainly made things a little better.

A Bowl of Rice

Things are getting cold out there. It’s only mid-November but I woke up this morning feeling as if it could have been the dead of winter. Five blankets deep within my bed, I huddled in a little ball, burrowing myself under. Only my nose poked out to the world beyond, numb and pink like a little mouse. I left my house, plump with multiple coats yet despite the layers, the cold settled deep. I was in a cold mood, had cold thoughts. It’s been a cold sort of day.

A cold day calls for foods of comfort. Rich starches, warm flavors, long and slow cooking so that the heat of the stove permeates the house.  I made a simple bowl of white rice for dinner, that wholesome grain that I relied on so much for comfort as a child. The only thing I could stomach when sick and the cure-all for a bad day. Rice, butter, salt, pepper.

At the end of this long week, on the first day in a long time where I simply had nothing to do, on a Friday night when everyone else was busy and my thoughts a little bleak, I bundled up at home and made and basic yet elegant spiced Indian rice. It started with toasting an array of spices; cinnamon, cardamom, black peppercorns, whole cloves, a bay leaf, cumin seeds. The spices were tossed with white basmati rice and left to cook for several minutes in which time the air became perfumed with exotic aromas. Rich and sweet cardamom mingled with the bright and spicy cumin. All the while cinnamon filled my lungs with festive warmth and the toasting rice released deep floral nuttiness. Its smell almost visibly swirled seductively through the air, a belly-dancing courtesan of a smell. The rice, once finished, was topped with a sprinkling of pistachios, crispy fried shallots, and a fresh poached egg, The egg yolk coated the granules of rice for a rich and creamy sauce and each bite brought back a little warmth to the my body as the aromas first passed under my nose and into the mouth.

I know, I know, a little non-traditional for Friday night. Shouldn’t I be out having beer and greasiness and other college Friday night things? Well besides my general lack of “traditional”, I just know that it was alone-time sort of night. A night where I needed to sit down with a bowl of rice. The bowl now sits empty and all is good.

Spiced Indian Rice
Adapted from Journey Kitchen
serves 2-3 as a main dish

Ingredients
1½ cups white basmati rice
2¼ cups water
1½ Tbs. vegetable oil
1½ tsp. cumin seeds
2 whole cloves
2 black peppercorns
½ cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
2 cardamom pods
1 shallot, cut into rings plus oil for frying
a handful of shelled pistachios
1 egg per person
salt and pepper

Wash the rice until the water runs clear and soak in water for an hour. After an hour, drain the excess water. In a deep and thick-bottomed saucepan with a lid or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the cinnamon, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, and cardamom. Stir to coat with oil. Add the cumin seeds. When the seeds begin to pop, add the rice. Stir to coat and toast for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the rice has toasted, add the water and some salt, stir, turn the heat to high, and cook uncovered for 7-8 minutes until the water is almost absorbed. Cover with the lid, turn the heat to medium-low, and continue to cook for 5-7 minutes or until the water is absorbed completely.  Fluff the rice with a fork.

Meanwhile, put a pot on water or the stove and bring to a simmer. This will be for poaching the egg. Also, heat enough vegetable oil in a small frying pan to cover the bottom. Once hot, add the shallots and cook, stirring frequently until crisp and deep golden colored. Transfer to a paper towel to drain. When the water in the pot is simmering, crack the egg/s into the water and cook for about 4 minutes each. Remove from the water and let drain on a paper towel.

To assemble, place a good portion of the rice in a bowl. Top with salt and pepper and a little butter if you’d like. Scatter on the pistachios, onions, and the egg. Season with salt and pepper.

P.S. Be careful that you don’t confuse any of the cardamom pods with the pistachios. They look quite alike and that could lead to an interesting little surprise.

Apple Tart

Apple season always puts me in this crazed fanatic mood. I stock up on dozens and literally change all of my meals so that they somehow incorporate this beautiful seasonal ingredient. I’ve been making pork chops topped with sautéed apples and blue cheese, sweet potatoes stuffed with apples and cheddar, butternut squash soup sweetened with apples and cider. There is nothing comparable to the taste of a freshly picked Virginia apple. The skin is rough and bumpy, free from that awful wax that defiles the outside every store-bought variety. The flesh is firm and dense as if every square inch is packed with as much pure apple flavor as possible. And of course nothing beats that satisfying crunch with each and every bite.

But a celebration of the fall apple wouldn’t be complete without an apple pie, right? Well, the thing is, I’m not a huge pie fan. They are just so heavy and the crust seems to overtake the fruit inside, the ingredient that should stand out instead. The filling usually ends up as a sickeningly sweet and syrupy concoction that masks that great fruit flavor and that syrup eventually runs to the bottom and transforms what used to be a flaky crust into a pile of mush.

Yep, definitely don’t like pie too much.

But a tart…now a tart is not a pie. A tart takes all of the unfortunate aspects of pie and gets rid of them, leaving all that is good and tasty. Whether it’s a fruit tart, chocolate, frangipane, etc., it just seems to get the proportions right.

This simple apple tart I made is a proper tribute to the fall apple. A thin, flaky, and buttery crust serves as a sturdy base for a whole lot of pure and simple apple. No gelatinous flour sauce coats this fruit. It gets a little brush of butter, a sprinkling of coarse raw sugar, and a dash of cinnamon. That’s it. It bakes long and slow and the apples slowly soften, the sugars condensing and turning the tart flavors slightly sweeter. A sweet and toasty smell fills the air in a scent that speaks of nothing but fall. The crust crisps up, turning delicate and tender with a subtle crunch from the sugar and a thin glaze of jam puts a lightly sweet glisten over the top. It needs nothing on the side (though a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream wouldn’t be bad at all) for the apples speak for themselves. If you want to celebrate apples this year, this is the way to do it.

Apple Tart
from Smitten Kitchen’s adaptation of Alice Water’s recipe

This tart actually keeps for a while in the fridge. Though it’s best warm and fresh out of the oven, it revives beautifully when recrisped in a toaster oven. Like any pie, it can also be frozen after cooling and reheated in the oven if you want to make it ahead of time. But it is so light and fresh and fragrant, you may not be able to resist from gobbling it up before it makes it to the freezer.

Ingredients
for the dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
6 Tbs. just-softened butter cut into cubes
3½ Tbs. cold water

for the filling
5 firm and tart apples (I used enterprise apples) peeled, cored, halved, and cut into thin half-circle slices
2 Tbs. butter, melted
3 Tbs. coarse sugar
a dash of cinnamon

for the glaze
your favorite jam

First make the dough. Mix the flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add 2 Tbs. of the butter. Rub the butter into the flour with the tips of your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the rest of the butter and rub into the flour until you have pea-sized pieces. Dribble in the water, one Tbs. at a time and toss it into the butter and flour mixture with your hands. Continue adding the water (add more or less as needed) until the dough is able to form into a ball. Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

While the dough is sitting in the fridge, you can work on preparing you apples, peeling, coring, halving, and cutting into thin slices. When ready to assemble, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until about 1 inch bigger that the tart pan on each side. Lightly grease the ban and drape the dough overtop, pressing it up the sides and letting the extra hang over the edge. Arrange the apple slices inside, flat, cut-side down, overlapping and working in a circle from the outside in until you use all of the apples. Take the overhanging crust and drape it over about two inches of the apples on the outside. Remove any excessive crust. Brush the melted butter over the apples and the crust and sprinkle over the sugar and a little bit of cinnamon. Bake for 45 minutes, turning every 15, until the crust is golden and the apples soft.

Remove from the oven to cool about 15 minutes before serving. Before serving, heat a small amount of your favorite jam or preserves (apple or apricot would be nice) in the microwave and brush a thin layer over the apples so they shine. Serve alone or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Beet and Barley Risotto

Waking up Saturday morning, my heavy eyes flickering open to the new day’s light, I saw a glow through my window. No, it wasn’t the brightening orange of crisp autumn like a warm filter in my windowpane. It was something a little more…unexpected. I woke up to a blinding whiteness that casts iridescent glimmers across my walls. A frosty fogginess not much unlike the way heaven might feel. It was the morning light reflecting off a fresh 5 inches of snow. Yes, in Virginia we had snow in October, a sight I have never seen in 21 years of my life.

It ruined the Halloween plans of many yet caused a sudden bout of holiday spirit and I embarrassingly found myself humming Christmas music throughout the day. It was a day to wrap up in a blanket, sip a warm cup of tea, and cuddle up with the heater vent like it’s our last day on earth together. But above all it was a day where baking cookies was absolutely necessary and long, slow comfort food a must. It would have been a good day for something like this beet and barley risotto.

I like to think of this dish as the perfect way to celebrate the first frost. It uses up the very last of late summer beets and incorporates that fresh flavor before winter comes along and we are stuck in the long days of meat, beans, and potatoes. Yet its warmth, richness, and creaminess are comforting enough to take off a serious chill.

It’s as simple as any other risotto. While the beets idly cook away in the oven, the barley and onions take a nice bubbling bath in wine and stock, slowly soaking up the liquid until swelled and tender. The natural starches lend silkiness without a single addition of cream necessary.  But or course, a fine grating of parmesan cheese, folded and melted within, just adds that little extra touch of gooeyness. And finally, the beets are diced and stirred in, transforming the dish into mass if brilliant rubies. It’s topped with crumbled goat cheese, which melts into the risotto in pockets of tangy, cheesy sauce, and balsamic reduction syrup for a sweet-tart kick.

It’s one of those dishes where I couldn’t wait for leftovers the next day, and the day after that. It has this special way of filling up the heart with love and comfort yet its deceivingly healthy and full of vitamins and protein. It slowly heats you from the outside as you stand over the pot stirring away, loving each and every piece of barley in sight and then from the inside as the warm grains slide down the throat. A first-snow dish for sure.

Beet and Barley Risotto
adapted from imagalicious
serves 4

I know that some people are a little iffy about beets so this could also work with butternut squash. The same goes for the barley; if you prefer risotto with traditional Arborio rice, it’s perfectly fine to use that. My big tip for this dish is to start the beets way ahead of time. You never know how long they’ll take and if they are big like mine were, it could take up to two hours.

Ingredients
2 medium sized beets
1 cup pearl barley, rinsed
1 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
½ cup dry white wine
1 quart vegetable or organic chicken stock
½ cup grated Parmesan
salt and pepper

to serve
balsamic reduction (recipe follows)
goat cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub the outside of the beets under cold water. Dry and rub with olive oil and salt. Place in a foil parcel and bake in the oven for about 90 minutes or until tender all the way through.

Heat the stock to a simmer in a saucepan. In a deep frying pan or pot, heat the olive oil and cook the onion along with a teaspoon each of salt and pepper until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more. Add in the barley and stir to coat and continue to cook for one more minute. Add the white wine and stir. Once the wine is evaporated, add a few ladlefuls of the warm stock and stir. Let the barley continue to cook over a medium heat, stirring occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom. Every time the liquid is fully absorbed and things look dry add a few more ladlefuls of stock until all of the stock runs out. The process will take about 40 minutes.

When the beets are cooked, remove them from the oven and let cool slightly. Remove the skin and dice into fairly small pieces. Add to the risotto along with the Parmesan and stir until everything is bright red. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

To serve, place in a bowl and top with a crumbling of goat cheese and a drizzle of the balsamic reduction.

Balsamic reduction
Ingredients
½ cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs. brown sugar

Mix the two ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula until reduced by half and syrupy. Remove from the heat. Use right away or store in the refrigerator and reheat as needed.

Halloween Soufflé

Halloween. I’m not sure what to say about Halloween without offending a large number of people. But I think its safe to say that it is a holiday I could do without.

I don’t particularly like wearing costumes. People in costumes (i.e. Ronald McDonald) were the objects of terror to me as a child and I cried and hid whenever I saw them. This fear kind of stuck around as I aged and even now I run away from costumed people. I don’t like not being able to see their faces. I’m not fond of the idea of wearing a barely-there costume outside in 40-degree weather. I know I should be celebrating but on a cold night I’d rather stay cuddled with my hot chocolate indoors. To me, Halloween is just another one of our “made in China holidays where we are forced to eat disgusting candy that tasked like amoxicillin.

That is why I liked Halloween so much last year, when I was in London. There, the holiday was treated as an excuse to celebrate the season’s bounty and spend time with each other, enjoying good food and fun, fall activities. Last Halloween I walked amongst changing leaves, bought a purple and turquoise hydrangea from the flower market, visited the peter pan statue in Hyde Park, ate the most delicious lavender and honey ice cream cone, and attended and festive Bompas and Parr jelly-making session at Fortnum and Mason. I had butternut squash for dinner with a cup of warm tea and called it the best Halloween ever. So this year I want to celebrate similarly despite the cheap and typically American craziness that will occur around me. And I will most definitely treat myself to this dish again.

This is a Halloween Soufflé.  I made it two weeks ago…for lunch on a Monday…at 3:00 in the afternoon. It is a recipe I’ve had marked for a while in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. The recipe note says, “try something scary today, by scary I mean soufflé.” So that Monday afternoon, on the brink of a serious case of the hunger shakes, I decided on a spur of the moment decision to forgo eating for another two hours and try something scary: my first soufflé.

It’s called a Halloween soufflé because the lovely mixture of eggs, butter, and flour is combined with a large dose of creamy pumpkin puree. It turned the dish a deep golden color and added a subtle hint of earthy sweetness. And despite the time-consuming aspect, the soufflé was much less scary than I’ve always thought. I created my rue without any lumping problems. I mixed it with my egg yolk and pumpkin and miraculously avoided a curdling disaster. And finally, I folded this with my perfectly whipped egg whites. It went into the oven and for a frightening 20 minutes I waited, hoping for a successful outcome.

What I pulled from the oven was a beautiful thing; it had done exactly what it was supposed to. The top rose in a crackly golden mound above the lip of the bowl. It jiggled slightly as I quickly transferred it to the table, letting me know of the fluffy, airy surprise waiting inside. And within minutes I watched as the soufflé slowly started deflating and with that, I knew it was time to eat. It was warm and silky, and flowed like cream on my tongue. The tangy goat cheese offset the pumpkin’s sweetness and a nice smoky flavor and crunchiness came from the ground hazelnuts that coated the inside of my cooking bowl. A seemingly horror story with a happy ending…and it sure beats the hell out of candy corn!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Soufflé for One
adapted from Plenty

The ingredient amounts are a little guessed and wonky for this recipe because I cut the original in half and was also trying to convert from the metric system without a kitchen scale. But what I ended up doing worked fine so that’s all that mattered to me. Since I made it for just myself, I cooked it in a large, oven-proof soup bowl. Enjoy this with a nice green salad and a glass of white wine. Trust me, if you have this for Halloween, you won’t even miss out on the candy.

 Ingredients
2/3 cup pumpkin puree (I used fresh roasted and pureed pumpkin but I’m sure canned would work. Refer to here for roasting instructions)
a handful of hazelnuts
15 grams melted butter for greasing
15 grams unsalted butter
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. flour
125 ml milk
2 egg whites
1 egg yolk
pinch of chili powder
1 tsp. chopped thyme
35 g strong goat cheese
salt
sour cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put a baking sheet on the top shelf. Chill your cooking bowl in the fridge. Pulverize the hazelnuts in a food processor until you have a powder. Brush your chilled bowl with the melted butter and coat the entire inside with the ground hazelnuts. Tip out the remaining hazelnuts and set aside.

Melt the remaining 15 grams of butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook while stirring for about a minute. Slowly add in the milk and stir with a wooden spoon until the sauce is thick and free of lumps. Set aside.  In a bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, egg yolk, chili powder, thyme, goat cheese, and ½ tsp salt. Add the milk sauce and stir until smooth

Whisk the egg whites until you have stiff peaks but they are not dry. Gently incorporate them into the pumpkin mixture, being careful to retain as much of the air as possible. Fill up your prepared bowl and place on the preheated baking sheet for 22-24 minutes until the soufflé is puffed, the top is golden brown and the center just slightly moves when jiggled. Eat immediately with sour cream on the side.