Cranberry Port Gelée. A.T.

The older I get, the less consistently I floss.  I also worry less about butter than about sinking coastlines and the state of honeybee hives.  So much of our future is unknown.  All of it, in fact. 

So you might as well eat happily.  And this includes bringing the cranberry sauce. Life is too short to eat something congealed from a can. 

Especially if you live in New England.  And have twenty minutes to spare.

The recipe is a Canal House classic.  Mix in a few arguably unusual ingredients.  Juniper berries.  Black peppercorns.  Fortified wine.  Then cook down some native fruit and strain and chill.  And, ta da, you have a new standby.  Plus an excuse to open a bottle of port. 

So please forgive the inappropriate timing.  Quite the nerve coming to you the morning after Thanksgiving, I know.  But there was a turkey to cook. And flossing to neglect. And—as my brother and I established with our oven timeline yesterday—there’s a clear linear delineation of B.T. and A.T. 

Before Turkey.  And After Turkey.

This means Before Turkey is behind us. But we have a whole world of After Turkey yet to discover.  And in this time I suggest, at some point, you make cranberry gelée.  It’s intriguingly floral and yet not too much of a departure for the traditionalists. 

Because cranberries can exist more than once a year.   And you just might need something for your turkey sandwich today.

Cranberry Port Gelée

Adapted by Food52 and the Canal House

Ingredients:

1 cup port

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp juniper berries

10 black peppercorns

pinch of salt

1-12 ounce bag of cranberries

Instructions:

In a medium saucepan, place the port, sugar, juniper, peppercorns and salt; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the cranberries and return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the berries burst and soften (about 10 to 15 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Using a wire mesh sieve, strain the solids into a bowl. With a rubber spatula, press to extract as much of the liquid as possible. Towards the end the liquid will get thicker.  Stir the extracted thin and thick solids together.

Pour into a serving dish and cover with plastic wrap.  Chill until firm and ready to serve (at least a few hours or overnight).

Makes between 1 to 2 cups (depending on how long the cranberries are cooked)

Notes:

-Red wine could also be employed in place of the port.

Pecan Pie and the Hunters

Three little letters. P-I-E.  But they can strike fear.  There is the prospect of shrinking crusts (!), tough pastry (!), and gummy dough (!) for one.  Add a pinch of “meeting the boyfriend’s family for the first time” and you have yourself a down-home recipe for a thanksgiving disaster.

That is, if you don’t have the right recipe.  And if the family doesn’t happen to be one hundred and ten percent wonderful.  For me, both turned out to be quite lovely.  I was lucky enough to spend five days a few hours north of Portland with some very special people and enough food to feed a forest. 

Of course, there was the dinner of  turkey with two kinds of stuffing, sliced cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes dug from the field next door.  But there was also venison sauerbraten.  Lasagna.  Pistachio cake.  Cheese.  Lots of cheese.  Tangerine poppy seed bread.  Red wine.  Bourbon.  And beer.  Lots of beer. 

Plus a whole roasted porchetta-style pig with a cider reduction.  Coriander beets.  Rosemary roasted potatoes.  And cooked down kale greens.  To name a few.

In the early morning hours, bright orange hats and warm coats went out in search of deer.  And when the sun went down, the hunters came back in search of beer.  Cocktail hour started at 4:30 pm sharp.  Dinner for twelve at a long table followed.  As it turned out, these were my kind of people.

And though no deer found their way to the house, it didn’t matter. The holiday housed a lot of laughs.  Some board games.  A hefty dose of football.  And pie. 

This pecan pie did not escape as easily as the deer did.  In fact, one leftover slice was hunted by many the morning after thanksgiving.  There were no rifles involved, thank heavens.

Just a few loaded fistfuls of pecans and a nice balance of gooey caramel, not overly sweet in nature.  A perfect compliment to the buttery crust.  And a pie straight from Joanne Chang’s pastry playbook, of the Flour Bakery + Café fame.

It wasn’t the world’s pretty pie, mind you.  But it didn’t matter.  It was delicious.  And an easy target for the hunters.  Being just P-I-E, and all. 

Pecan Pie

Adapted from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery + Café by Joanne Chang

Ingredients:

for the pâte brisée

1¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces in total

2 egg yolks

3 tbsp half and half (or cold milk)

for the filling

¾ cup sugar

½ cup water

3 eggs

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp kosher salt

1 cup light corn syrup

2 tbsp unsalted butter

2½ cups pecan halves

Instructions:

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment mix the flour, sugar, and salt together for 10-15 seconds until combined.  Scatter the butter over the mixture and mix on low speed for about 1 minute until the mixture starts to clump and the butter pieces are the size of pecans.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and half and half (or milk) together and then add this mixture to the flour mixture; mix on low speed until the dough barely comes together (it will look shaggy); this should take about 30 seconds.

Dump the dough on an unfloured workspace and gather it together into a tight mound.  Using the palm of your hand smear the dough by pushing your hand down the mound so that the butter bits become streaked.  Do this once or twice on each part of the dough (you’ll do it a total of about eight times) until the dough looks a bit more cohesive.  Gather up the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap, and press it into a disk about one inch in thickness.  Refrigerate for at least four hours (and up to four days) before using.

When you are ready to make the pie, remove the dough from the fridge and set aside roughly ¼ of the dough to reserve for another use (see: pop tarts or hand pies in the notes section below).  On a floured surface, roll out the remaining dough into a twelve inch circle about 1/8 inch thick.  Roll the dough around a floured rolling pin and then onto your pie pan.  Gently ease the pie dough into your pie pan, you should have a fair amount of dough overhang, and then crimp or pleat the dough with your fingers around the edge of the pan (you can trim the edges, if necessary; you’ll want a little bit of an overhang, about ¼ to ½ inch though). 

Refrigerate the pie shell for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  When ready, line your shell with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans (about a pound or so of beans).  Bake for about 30 minutes or until the shell is light brown and the inside bottom of the pie crust is not super glossy, if you lift up the parchment paper and peer underneath.

When the pie is cooling (leave the oven set at 350), pour the sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir to combine.  Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil.  During this time do not move the pan or the sugar syrup may crystallize.  When the syrup turns a pale brown you can swirl the pan occasionally to even out the caramelization (still don’t stir it).  You want the syrup to turn golden brown; this will take about four minutes or so. 

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, lemon juice, vanilla and salt; set aside.  When the sugar is golden brown, turn the heat down to medium and whisk in the corn syrup, working to remove the clumps that form; whisk until the mixture is smooth again.  Then remove from the pan from the heat and add in the butter; stir to combine.  Very slowly, pour the hot syrup into the egg mixture, a little bit at a time, whisking constantly.  (Really take your time to prevent the egg from curdling.)  When all the syrup has been incorporated, add in the pecans and stir until fully combined.

Pour the pecan mixture into the pie shell (be sure to remove the pie weights or beans and parchment first) and bake at 350 degrees until the pecan mixture has puffed and doesn’t move when you jiggle the pan, this took me about 30 minutes or so.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Makes one 9-inch pie

Notes:

-You may wish to make the dough the day before.  It means fewer dishes and less work on the day of pie.

-I made the pâte brisée crust for a double crust with the intent to make apple pie.  That didn’t happen.  I had some dough leftover, which made for some pretty lovely [what I am calling] hand pies filled with jam.  I simply followed Chang’s recipe for homemade poptarts. You can find it here.

-If you want to make a single crust (and no hand pies), Chang calls for 1 cup of flour, 2 tsp of sugar, ½ tsp kosher salt, and ½ cup plus 1 tbsp butter, 1 egg yolk, and 2 tbsp cold milk (or half and half) instead.

-Passing by Portland each way we stopped at Duck Fat and Pai Men Miyake.  And I could not recommend these places enough.

Sour Cherry Pie with Whole Wheat Pâte Brisée: We Survived

“White meat is for wusses.”  This is what my brother said at the Thanksgiving table last week. It is entirely possible he was clutching a drumstick at the time. 

This past holiday was not for weaklings.  We had a 16-pound hen turkey that my eighty-eight year old grandmother lugged up from her basement freezer. We debated on just how drunk Frank Sinatra sounded in his holiday record with Bing. And my little cousin quietly (okay, not so quietly) tried to plot a Monopoly coup when I secured hotels on both Boardwalk and Park Place.

It was a take-no-prisoners kind of holiday.  And I was well aware that the pie had better deliver.  Luckily, no one took the pie pan and heaved it out the window.  It was quite good, actually.  In fact, I do believe I’ll likely live to make pie again. 

The whole wheat pâte brisée was purely accidental.  It was my second attempt at making this Thanksgiving's pie crust.  It's best not to get into the first attempt details.  Let's just say it ended in some pretty unfortunate pastry carnage.  I don't want to implicate the bread flour, but it knows what it did.  

As for the sour cherries?  No one in their right mind likely has them right now.  They were collateral damage from a freak farmers' market "accident" this summer.  At the time I desperately needed over fifty dollars worth of sour cherries to, ahem, store in my freezer. 

These mistakes made for a lovely pie.  An “I can absolutely eat this for breakfast” kind of pie.  And lunch.  And dinner.  It was a take-no-prisoners nutty, flaky, cherry-filled pastry.  And it certainly made itself at home with the rest of the holiday.

Sour Cherry Pie with Whole Wheat Pâte Brisée

Ingredients:

Pâte Brisée Crust

Adapted from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe by Joanne Chang 

1.75 cups white whole wheat pastry flour

1 tbsp sugar, plus additional sugar for dusting

1 tsp kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 12 pieces

2 egg yolks

3 tbsp whole milk, plus 1 additional tbsp after the pie is filled

Cherry Filling

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp corn starch

1/4 tsp salt

5 cups whole sour cherries, pitted 

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp unsalted butter

Crust Instructions:

To made the crust, use a kitchen aid with the paddle attachment or handheld mixer and mix together flour, sugar and salt for about 10 seconds or until combined.  Scatter the butter over the top of the flour and mix on low speed for about 1 minute or until the butter is about the size of pecans and the flour holds together when you pinch it.

In a small bowl, whisk the yolks and 3 tbsp of milk together and then add to flour mixture; mix on low speed for about 30 seconds or until the dough barely comes together.  (At this point it will not look like dough, it will look like a shaggy flour mixture; be careful not to overmix it.)

Dump the flour on to an unfloured space and gather it together into a tight mound.  With the palm of your hand push the top of the mound down and out, smearing the dough as you go.  Repeat this about once or twice on each part of the dough until the butter is smeared throughout and you can see streaks of it (this should take about 6-10 smearings).  Gather up the dough and wrap it tightly with plastic wrap.  It needs to rest at least 4 hours (or up to 4 days) in the fridge before it is ready to be used.

Pie Instructions:

When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Take the dough out of the fridge and allow it to soften slightly to make it easier to roll.  Meanwhile, to make the filling, whisk sugar, cornstarch and salt in a medium bowl; stir in cherries, lemon juice, and extracts and set aside.  

Divide dough into 2 equal pieces; on a floured surface, form 1 piece of the dough into a circle and roll it out until it is 12 inches in diameter.  (Using your rolling pin, roll the dough out in one direction instead of rolling your pin back and forth.  Pause to shift the dough ninety degrees to ensure that the dough rolls out evenly.)  Once the first piece of dough is rolled out, place it on a plate in the fridge until it is ready to be used.  

Repeat your rolling with the second dough piece.  Then, roll this dough round gently around your rolling pin and then slowly unroll it on to a 9-inch pie pan; gently coax the dough into the pan by pushing the edge of the dough so that it slides into the bottom of the pie pan and then press the dough gently into the bottom of the pan.  Let the excess dough hang off the sides of the pan.

Pour the filling into the middle of the pie pan, dot with 2 tbsp of butter. Roll the other dough round loosely around your rolling pin and unroll it on top of the filling.  Trim the excess dough so that it is 1/2 inch from the lip of the pie pan, using a knife.  Crimp the top and bottom crust edges together.  Cut about eight 2 inch slits into the top pie crust.  Brush the top crust with 1 tbsp of milk and sprinkle with sugar (about 1 tbsp). 

Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes; reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake for about 50-60 minutes longer.  Check occasionally to make sure the pie edges aren't browning too much; cover them with foil to prevent further browning, as necessary.  The pie is done when the crust is golden brown and the cherry juices are bubbling.  Let cool on a wire rack, about 4 hours, before serving.

Yields one sweet pie

Notes:

-I combined a few different recipes to come up with this one, including this one from Bon Appetit. I wanted to use Chang's pâte brisée because I "get" how she explains pastry.  And, let's be honest, this was a high stakes pie mission.  Chang uses all purpose flour for her crust.  If you want to do a whole grain crust you'll want to use pastry flour, otherwise just use regular flour.  The crust turned out great, whole wheat and all.

-If you are using frozen cherries, you can heat your cherry filling ever so slightly in a pan just until the cherries soften.  You don't want the mixture to be hot, nor do you want the cherries to still be frozen when you pour it into the pie pan.

-The instructions for this recipe are a bit intense.  I know.  And for this I am sorry.   

Channel Your Inner Fancy: Eat Parker House Rolls

Black wide-framed sunglasses and buttery leather elbow gloves.  Maybe throw in a string of pearls.  Not the images you had in mind for dinner roll consumption?  These are not just any doughy dinner companion.  These are Parker House rolls.  And they just call for fancy.

The (now Omni) Parker House hotel here in Boston was first founded in 1855.  It is the oldest continuously running hotel in the States.  And it’s famous for its past regulars, including literary heavyweights like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Longfellow and presidential chums like Grant, FDR, and JFK.  Jack proposed to Jackie there.  Arguably, their rolls make the hotel just as noteworthy.  

I am well aware that recipes for Parker House rolls are everywhere.  I recently stumbled across a recipe in a family heirloom: The White House Cookbook, published in 1894.  The cookbook has a stunning portrait of the “bride of the White House,” Frances Tolson Cleveland; glassware placement instructions for stately government dinner receptions; and a recipe for Parker House rolls. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the "one half cupful of fresh yeast," nor was I feeling adventurous enough to wing approximating a piece of butter “the size of an egg,” as the recipe suggested. Luckily, Harvard Common Press had graciously sent me the New England Home Cooking cookbook.  And it has a lovely recipe for Parker House rolls.  (Albeit, a recipe with a tad more butter.) Believe me, the extra is worth it.  It's an easy way to add a little luxury to your day.

I also added parsley bits and little flecks of sea salt on top of the rolls, which I borrowed from the John Dory restaurant in New York.  They serve a version of Parker House rolls that accompany a platter of raw shellfish.  Some may scoff that this recipe is not “traditional.”  I’m not certain that even the Parker House recipe published in The White House Cookbook in 1894 is traditional or that Harvey Parker himself would know the difference. 

What I do know is that these rolls are exquisite.  Buttery, luxurious, and absolutely worth making.  They may be a bit old school.  But they’re classic.  And they’ll make any occasion a little more special.  No playboy marriage proposals, presidential dinners, or soft leather gloves necessary.  

Parker House Rolls

Adapted from New England Home Cooking by Brooke Dojny

Ingredients:

1/4 ounce regular rise yeast ( 1 package)

1/4 cup hot tap water (about 110 degrees)

1.25 cups whole milk

1/4 cup sugar

11 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (plus additional for brushing rolls)

3-5 cups flour (or more as necessary)

1 egg yolk

2 tsp kosher salt

oil for greasing

2-3 tbsp fresh parsley, minced

a few pinches of fleur de sel (optional)

Instructions:

Combine yeast and hot water in a small bowl; set aside until yeast bubbles (about 10 minutes).  Combine milk, sugar, melted butter, 2 cups of flour, egg yolk, and salt in a large bowl (or the bowl of a kitchen aid with a dough hook attachment).  Add yeast mixture into bowl and stir well.  Add 1 cup more of flour and knead by hand or by dough hook (5 minutes by machine with the dough hook or about 10 minutes by hand).  The dough should get smooth and elastic; continue to add more flour until the dough is soft and workable (not sticky).  Transfer to a bowl greased with oil.  Cover and let rise until it doubles in size (about 1.5 hours).

Lightly oil 1-2 casserole dishes (depending on the size of your dishes)  Punch the dough down and divide into 2 pieces.  Take 1 piece and roll the dough out until it is about 3/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface.  Using a 2-3" biscuit or cookie cutter (or the inside of a small glass or coffee cup, if necessary) cut out rounds of dough.  Take the sides of each round and pinch them together at the bottom, so that each round becomes slightly more circular and ball-like in shape (roll the dough a bit with your hands to smooth it out, as necessary).

Place the dough rounds on your greased casserole dishes no more than 1/2 inch apart.   Repeat with the second half of the dough.  Combine any remaining scraps and repeat again.  Brush the tops of the rolls with additional melted butter and top with parsley and fleur de sel, if desired. Cover loosely and let rise for about an hour.  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Bake rolls until golden brown, about 20-30 minutes.  Transfer rolls to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 20 rolls

Notes:

-These rolls freeze brilliantly after they have been cooked and cooled.  

-They are also so good that they'll be making an appearance at my Thanksgiving.  Move over mashed potatoes.  

-Parker House rolls are often folded in half before baking.  You can certainly do this if you wish.  I like my rolls straight up.

-Side note: one of my favorite things about the hotel is that it is supposedly haunted.

-Random aside: check out my work on the November/December issue of Talking Writing, an online literary magazine.

A Stuffed Pumpkin to Silence all Inner Demons

I must admit, at various times in my life I’ve encountered a number of things that have brought out an inner demon or two. Luckily, I’ve never had to put pumpkin in the “demon antagonizer” category: that is, until last Tuesday.

I am usually quite at ease experimenting in the kitchen; unfortunately, I was not confident stuffing pumpkins, as I had heard Dorie Greenspan suggest to do on the radio last week. She was interviewed about her cookbook and described this dish in a way that begged me to make it, immediately. In a way that suggested that it was comfort food filled thoughtfully, effortlessly into a pumpkin and then forgotten about in the oven.

This is usually my kind of cooking. And yet, my inner critic was relentless. I mixed the bread with the cheese. “Are you sure this is all of the ingredients,” she taunted. “No eggs?” she questioned, imaginary eyebrow raised. “Your bread isn’t stale enough,” she whispered, breathing down my neck, “you need more nutmeg, more sweetness.” At the last minute, I chopped up an apple that seemed to be eyeing me suspiciously on the counter and added it in.

I am ashamed to admit this now, as I made two gloriously stuffed pumpkins, but this recipe brought out inner demons that are usually absent in my kitchen and had me second-guessing everything that was going into the oven that night. And I have no idea why.

It’s a lovely, simple recipe that should have had me visiting a place where I could reminisce about carving jack-o-lanterns and roasting pumpkin seeds. Yet, at the time I was pretty convinced this pumpkin would be a bland, lifeless, ugly squash-corpse: and it was taking me with it.

I had cut the top lopsided so it didn’t fit back on the pumpkin. Then, when I picked it up, the stem fell clear off. It was clear: this pumpkin was going to bring me down. And how timely, given that thanksgiving was around the corner. Talk about a time for inner demons.

Juggling thanksgiving issues is like playing whack-a-mole. You prevent the marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes from burning, just in time to dodge a drunk uncle, all the while basting the turkey (or fretting that you aren’t basting the turkey) and fielding questions about your love life—or lack thereof. It’s like a dysfunctional culinary opera. And yet, oddly enough, thanksgiving always turns out great. Even if the day doesn’t go perfectly (which it never does) there is usually a fair amount of laughs along the way, amid turkey gravy, pomegranate cocktails, and slices of pie.

What I suggest this year is to take the thanksgiving leftovers—definitely the day old rolls and perhaps the cranberry sauce—along with any demons you may be wrestling and shove them into a hollowed-out pumpkin and bake the hell out of them. Everything binds beautifully together (even without the eggs) and eating it you can’t help but lighten up a bit.

You’ve probably guessed by now, these stuffed pumpkins never did bring me down; in fact, they did quite the opposite. I wholeheartedly suggest you give this recipe a go. Even if you still feel a little like a stuffed pumpkin from thanksgiving dinner, at least it will be from pumpkin pie and not from your problems.

Stuffed Pumpkin

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1-2 small pumpkins, tops cut off (like you are carving a pumpkin), hollowed out with seeds removed
OR sliced in half, hollowed out with seeds removed (depending on the shape of your pumpkin)
3-4 slices of day-old bread, torn into pieces
1 cup shredded cheese, cheddar or swiss would work great
1/2 cup whole milk (heavy cream would also be lovely if you have it)
1 apple, diced (skin can be left on)
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of ginger
Pinch of allspice
Pinch of cinnamon
Kosher salt black pepper to taste
Olive or canola oil for greasing pan


Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease sheet pan with oil. Mix all ingredients (besides the pumpkins) together in a medium-sized bowl, until bread is slightly soggy and mixture is fairly wet throughout. (You may need to add more bread or more milk until you get the right consistency and amount). Fill pumpkins with mixture, place on sheet pan and bake covered loosely with foil for about 30-40 minutes. Remove foil and bake uncovered 20-30 minutes more, or until pumpkin flesh is soft and appears cooked throughout. (Cover the pumpkins again with foil if they are browning too much and still need time cooking.)


Notes:
-If you cut the pumpkin top off with care, you can probably put it back on the pumpkin and bake everything in the oven, as Dorie suggests. I did not execute this stage with grace.


-This recipe is open to interpretation, even Ms. Greenspan says is a "recipe-in-progress"; feel free to stuff it with whatever leftovers you think might mix in nicely. Cranberry relish and walnuts would both be lovely additions. Jello mold, perhaps not so much.


-Look for pumpkins that are about 2-3 pounds in size. As you can see, I tested two types of pumpkins. I preferred the round over the long variety. It tasted sweeter. And I enjoyed being able to cut slices of it.