Here's to Rosemary Pear Sparkling Cocktails

We are on the eve of a new year.  Can you hear the noisemakers and balcony whoops yet?  Well, they are coming.  So break out your sequins or put in your earplugs.  Both reactions are perfectly acceptable. For me, it’s hard to resist going out on a high note, whatever that might mean. 

One year I spent New Year’s with a loved one, a lobster, and a comfortable red couch.  Another Eve I started it off by cracking open some oyster shells.  And ended it by ordering a glass of gin at a bar that was very unfortunately out of green olives.  This year, things won’t likely be quite so … spirited. Though, I am planning to make it past midnight.

At the moment, I look to the chairman of the board and some bubbly for a little celebratory encouragement.  Sinatra’s advice: come in out of the rain; those torches you carry must be drowned in champagne.

The bubbly doesn’t sing quite as loudly as old blue eyes, but it coaxes to do much of the same.  And if we use sparkling wine, it presents us with a very lovely canvas to gild. Should you feel so inclined.

The undertones of rosemary offer up a gentle kick, reminiscent of the recent holiday.  While the pear lends a certain cozy sweetness to help us all settle into winter.  The effect is subtle, but it’s a festive change of pace from straight bubbles.

So who knows what old Eve and her year ahead will serve up.  It’s blank at the moment.  Best we can do is toast to it all.  To the last drinks of the year and to whatever the next round may bring.  Here’s to those that serve sparkling cocktails.  Bless them all.

Rosemary Pear Sparkling Cocktails

Ingredients:

For the rosemary pear syrup

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

1 ripe pear, cut into slices

3 sprigs rosemary

Pinch of salt

For the cocktail

Rosemary pear syrup, to taste (recipe above)

A bottle of sparkling wine

A lemon, the zest and a few tablespoons of lemon juice, for garnish

Additional sugar, for garnish

Instructions:

Prepare the syrup the night before you plan on using it by combining the sugar and water in a medium saucepan on medium heat.  Add the pear, sprigs of rosemary, and salt and heat until the sugar dissolves and the pear softens (about 10 minutes or so).  Let the mixture cool and then place in the fridge (pears and rosemary included) overnight.  

To make the cocktail, prepare a small plate filled with a few tablespoons of lemon juice and another small plate filled with a few tablespoons of sugar.  Dip the rim of a cocktail glass into the plate with lemon juice and then gently roll the edges of the glass in the sugar.  Place a few spoonfuls of the chilled syrup into the bottom of your glass; top with sparkling wine and garnish with lemon zest.

Notes:

-This is not a serious recipe.  Taste and adjust as you go. Heck, drink the whole bottle if you have to in the name of research.

-You'll likely have leftover syrup.  It wouldn't hurt to drizzle it over pears dotted with blue cheese.

-I left the skin on my pear.  You could certainly peel it, should you wish to do so.  If your pear happens to break up a bit during the cooking (mine held together) I imagine it's nothing a quick strain couldn't fix prior to serving.

The Memory of Maple Roasted Butternut Squash Barley Salad

Let me just say that I never thought barley + butternut squash could incite so much passion.  I should have known better.  I first made this salad for my sister’s bridal shower.  Her wedding was this past weekend and—even weeks later—it still had people talking.  I'd even go so far as to say that there was more salad-related chatter than the typical love life inquiry chitchat.  

Which was fine by me.  Talking about barley is much less awkward.  Especially when you’re in a bridesmaid dress with Frank Sinatra playing in the background.

Coincidentally, preparing this recipe requires a certain romancing of the ingredients.  It’s not rocket science, but you have to pay attention to the details.  And in the end, it’s the details that make the salad worth eating. 

So, dear barley salad, there are many things that will keep me loving you and, with your permission, may I list a few?  The way you wear your hat.  The way you sip your tea ….  Errr, I probably shouldn’t anthropomorphize the barley too much, should I?  I suppose it's too late.

This is truly a salad to love.  The butternut squash is peeled, chopped into tiny cubes, and tossed in oil and herbs.   The onions get bathed in balsamic.  Then these very special jewel-toned vegetables marry with the barley.  

So here it is, after much request: the ingredients and instructions that will—with any luck—recreate a gorgeous salad.  As for the ingredients and instructions for a gorgeous marriage?  Be forewarned, looks fade.  So you had better have backup.  As for the salad?  The taste improves the longer it sits.  With any luck, the leftovers for both will linger.  

But no matter what: the barley was good, and pretty, and the memory of all that, no, they can’t take that away from me.

Maple Roasted Butternut Squash Barley Salad

Ingredients

1 pound barley, uncooked

2 butternut squashes, peeled and chopped into 1/2" cubes

6 sage leaves, minced

3 sprigs rosemary, minced

~ 1 cup olive oil, divided

Salt and pepper

Juice of 3 lemons, divided (zest of one lemon reserved)

Juice of 3 tangerines, divided (zest of one tangerine reserved)

~6 tbsp maple syrup, divided

3 red onions, peeled and sliced thinly

2-4 tbsp balsamic vinegar (enough to coat red onions)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Prepare barley on stovetop according to package directions.  While barley is cooking, place butternut squash cubes on baking sheet and toss with the herbs and enough olive oil so that the cubes glisten and will not stick to the pan (~4 tbsp).  Season liberally with salt and pepper and place into preheated oven.

Meanwhile, prepare the dressing by combining the juice of 2 lemons, 2 tangerines, zest of 1 lemon and 1 tangerine, at least 1/2 cup olive oil, a quick gulg (a tablespoon or so) of maple syrup, and salt and pepper to taste.  (At this point you may need to add additional acidity, so add more citrus juice or additional maple syrup and olive oil for sweetness and body, respectively, as needed per your preference.)    Set dressing aside until the barley is thoroughly cooked with cooking water drained.  Toss 1/2 of the dressing with hot barley in a large bowl and set aside.

Then check on the butternut squash and toss it with ~1/4 cup maple syrup and juice from the remaining lemon and tangerine and place back in oven and continue to cook it until squash is fork tender and caramelized.  Meanwhile, place red onions on another baking sheet and toss with balsamic vinegar and additional olive oil; once again, until well coated.  Season with salt and pepper and roast in oven until they are caramelized and shriveled.  (They will roast fairly quickly, so keep an eye on them.)

Once the squash and onions are done, mix them with the barley; then toss everything with the remaining dressing.  Taste and adjust for additional salt and pepper as needed.

Makes about 10 cups 

Notes:

-Since this recipe was me, in the kitchen, in rare form: most of the measurements are approximates.  

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Crème de la Crème

If I could borrow from Sinatra: nothing but the best is good enough. I'm not talking Lincolns or lobsters from Maine. A bullfight in sunny old Spain would be nice, but I'm not sure it would beat out salted butter caramel ice cream. This is sweet caramel on caramel action. The crème de la ice crème.

If you've ever loved ice cream. If you've ever felt you've needed it at all. If you've ever had a broken heart. Found a goldfish belly up. Been in a hot pant for an ice cream float.

If you've ever possessed, at one time or another, strong views on deep, dark caramel. If you like the crunchy candy bits in butter crunch ice cream. Then this is the ice cream to keep in reserves.

And it's taken directly from David Lebovitz's playbook. An American pastry transplant living in Paris, Lebovitz knows his way around the sugar bowl. And for those familiar with the legendary Berthillion ice cream in the city of lights, Lebovitz asserts that his version is better than their famed glace caramel.

A dangerous statement. (With this he may as well be a matador; ice cream lovers, like bulls, can get pretty roused.) Luckily, boy does he deliver as promised.

For those that think butter has been overplayed. For those that think salted desserts are o-v-e-r. Think again. They aren't. They're timeless. Like Sinatra. And salt.

So tally-ho. Off we go. You and me, on an ice cream spree. Let's get started. Right away.

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz

Crunchy caramel bits

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 tsp sea salt (fleur de sel)

Ice cream

2 cups whole milk, divided

1.5 cups sugar

4 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp sea salt (fleur de sel)

1 cup heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

Brush a sheet pan generously with butter. Spread 1/2 cup sugar on the bottom of a medium-sized saute pan. Heat on moderate heat until the edges of the sugar begin to melt; slowly spread melting sugar into the middle of the pan, towards the center, until sugar is dissolved. Continue to cook until the sugar deepens in color, until it starts to smoke and nearly starts to burn. Add in salt and quickly pour onto the baking sheet; shift and swirl sheet to spread out caramel. Let cool. Cover.

Meanwhile, make an ice bath with ice cubes and water in a medium bowl and place a smaller bowl on top of the bath. Pour 1 cup of whole milk into the small bowl and rest a mesh strainer on top. Place 1.5 cups sugar in a sauce pan and cook similarly as above, until caramelized. Meanwhile, place egg yolks in a small bowl and whisk until combined. Once sugar is caramelized, remove from heat and add butter and salt. When butter is melted, add in the cream. The caramel may seize, but continue to stir until any hard caramel that has formed has melted again. Stir in the remaining cup of milk.

Gradually pour small amounts of the hot caramel mixture into the egg yolks to gently heat. Once eggs have tempered, add egg mixture into caramel and cook until it thickens and registers 160-170.

Pour custard through mesh strainer and stir in with remaining milk. Refrigerate until cook, ideally overnight.

Freeze in an ice cream maker, according to instructions. It will generally take 20-30 minutes. While ice cream is freezing, break up the caramel on the baking sheet into small bits. At the very end of the churning add in the caramel pieces.

Notes:

-The high amount of sugar in this recipe means that it will stay slightly softened (and lovely) in your freezer so you don't have to let it thaw ahead of time.

-If you've ever had an adult ice cream float (or have wanted to have one), this ice cream is perfect with Guinness. I promise.

Luck Be A Lentil

My family was one big walking Italian cliché over the holidays. We had 3 pies, 2 trays of cookies, and a bowl of red grapes for dessert ... for 12 people. We discussed making homemade ricotta for ravioli, as we sopped up leftover red sauce with Italian bread. We debated Aunt Marion’s meatball recipe: parsley or no parsley? We drank Chianti.

My mother even saved the red and white string I used to wrap gifts because it reminded her of the stuff they used to package old fashioned baked goods—which she'd walk to fetch for her grandmother—at Harrison Bakery, in Syracuse. (Which, truthfully, I bought because it reminded me of the string used to tie up boxes of cannoli at Modern Pastry in the North End—Boston’s version of Little Italy.) In short, we all but broke out singing "Dominick the Donkey."

But it really hit home just how Italian my family was when I broached the tradition of making lentils on December 31st each year. Italians believe that eating lentils on New Year’s Eve provides luck for the year ahead. Since lentils are shaped like little coins and are often green in color, it’s said that they signify good fortune: a legume-backed insurance policy of sorts. And so growing up, my mother would make us lentil soup at the start of every year.

This year at the Christmas table, my grandmother piped in to say she still made lentil soup, as did my aunt, and my mom’s cousin: a tradition that my great grandmother brought over from Italy, 98 years ago.

I learned that long before I was born, it was also tradition for my grandmother to (try) to avoid the lentil soup if there was garlic in it (she doesn’t like it). My great grandmother would then enact her deny, deny, deny garlic-in-the-soup policy until someone inevitably found a large chunk. (I imagine she must have felt like her hands were tied, being handed a garlic restriction: why bother to cook at all?) She’d shrug, wrinkle her nose, and act confused as to how—precisely—the garlic got there. But she knew exactly how.

And how can you mess with a stubborn tradition like that? Though, in the interest of full disclosure, staying in on New Year’s Eve to make lentil soup—instead of drinking champagne and wearing an obnoxious amount of sequins—sounded downright depressing this year. So for good measure, I made sure to get my lucky lentils in on the eve of New Year’s Eve at Addis Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston’s South End. You just can’t take any chances when it comes to an entire year of prosperity. And the lentils they served were all I had hoped for: spicy and a refreshing change of pace, just what I wish 2011 to be.

But being a bit of a traditionalist—and a bit superstitious—I made sure to whip up a pot of lentil soup this week. Just in case. It couldn’t hurt to have a little added insurance; a little extra lentil currency to ensure good fortune and most definitely, unabashedly, some garlic in the coming year.

Italian Lentil Stew

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp fresh thyme, minced (divided)

1 bunch carrots, diced (about 2 cups)

8 cups chicken stock, homemade if possible

2 cups lentils, preferably Puy

2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cups canned diced tomatoes, with slightly more tomato juice and less diced tomato

Kosher salt and pepper to taste, season throughout soup

Heat a large saucepan or dutch oven on medium heat and add olive oil. Add onions and cook until translucent, about 5-7 minutes, adding a pinch of salt as the onions cook. Add garlic and half your thyme and cook 2-3 minutes more. Add diced carrots and stir until combined. Add another sprinkle of salt and bit of pepper and cook carrots until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes more. Add stock, lentils, rosemary, allspice and red pepper flakes and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Add tomatoes/tomato juice and rest of thyme. Let cook for 10-15 minutes more and taste to adjust for seasoning. Continue to cook until lentils are soft but still retain their shape, about 10-25 minutes more.

Makes 9 cups

Notes:

-The cooking time of the lentils will depend on the type of lentil you use and how old the lentil is. Adding an acid will also increase the time it takes to cook the lentils. So if you are in a hurry it may be best to forgo the tomatoes, as much as it pains me to say so.

-I am a sucker for Puy lentils. Technically, they are French. And I love them. They hold their shape wonderfully and have an almost nutty flavor. They are also charmingly dark green with little blue specks and were originally grown in the volcanic soil of Le Puy, France.

-This is definitely a recipe where you can take some major creative license. Don't dig the pine of rosemary? Use oregano. Or sage. Or whatever else you'd like. Though, it definitely helps to salt as you go with a recipe like this, adding it only at the end may make it taste more salty and not necessarily more flavorful.

-This makes a thicker, hearty soup/stew. You can always add more broth if you'd like to thin it out.

-Adding parmesan cheese will only help your cause.

Garlic, I Lost You To the Summer Wind

I’ve been looking forward to home grown garlic since I planted it last fall. Garlic requires a bit of forethought, as it isn’t supposed to be ready for harvesting until summer is in full swing. A 10-month commitment: and so I planned and planted.

Plant garlic before bone-chilling New England winter sets in. Check.

See green shoots emerge a few weeks after planting. Check.

Look for shoots to reappear in spring. Check.

Come back from vacation on the Cape to find all traces of growing garlic completely gone. CHECK.

With summer a mere three days away, and my growing garlic mysteriously nowhere to be found, I can’t help but feel a bit betrayed (also bothered and bewildered). When I planted the garlic last fall, I imagined all the fun we would have come summer: pasta pomodoro, roasted garlic hummus, ratatouille … the list was endless. I thought we both wanted these things. Did I do something wrong? Did I water too much? Not enough? I will never know.

Heartsick over this unexpected loss, I turned to the one person that I knew would understand: Sinatra. And oh boy, did he. Just listen in:

Like painted kites, those days and nights, they went flyin’ by. The world was new, beneath a blue umbrella sky. Then softer than a piper man, one day it called to you. I lost you, I lost you to the summer wind. (From Sinatra’s song “Summer Wind”)

So what would Frank do when faced with broken summertime dreams? He’d cut his losses and trade ole’ garlic in for a younger, fresher broad. This is where the garlic scape comes in. During late spring and early summer, the garlic bulb begins to grow underground, while its above ground green shoot starts to curl. Once the shoot starts to loop de loop, it’s time to chop it off to allow for the garlic bulb to mature: what’s left is the "green" garlic scape.

The scape is delicate in flavor, milder than traditional garlic and quite tender if harvested young. It makes a great substitute for garlic, especially if you find raw garlic to be harsh (which I do). Turns out the garlic scape is also a great stand in for both garlic and onions and doesn’t require any cooking. Ah dear garlic scape, it's almost summer and I’ve already got you under my skin.

Garlicky Gorgonzola Dressing

3 ounces Gorgonzola (or other blue cheese)

1/4 cup Greek Yogurt

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

About 1 garlic scape, finely chopped

2 chives, finely chopped

6-8 basil leaves

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste (for salt I used about 1/3 tsp)

Combine all ingredients.

Yields about 1 cup.

Notes:

If you find raw garlic overwhelming you may want to start off with 1/2 a garlic scape and then add more to taste. Now is the time (late spring/early summer) to look for the scape at your local farmers' market. I've even seen it in grocery stores.

I used 0% Greek yogurt because it was what I had around and the dressing was great, but you could certainly use a higher percentage; I imagine things would only get better for you.

This dressing will be fairly thick, if you wish you could thin it out with more vinegar (or a little buttermilk); it would also be great as is as a vegetable dip.