Category: Recipe

A bite of the past, in present tense

Monday, Aug. 14, 2023

When I was a kid in New York about 60 years ago my grandmother in the Bronx bought crescent-shaped cookies that were gently crisp and had a licorice-y taste. They were Stella D’oro anisette toasts, made in the Bronx then, probably not far from where my grandparents lived. They were heavily advertised on the radio.

I didn’t know from cantucci, which is what Italians call the crescent, twice-baked cookie we call biscotti; I just liked them. My grandparents had them with coffee, I with milk and even though they weren’t particularly exotic or expensive, I only had them in the mornings at my grandparents’ apartment, usually while my grandmother listened to “Rambling with Gambling” on WOR.

Stella D’oro anisette toasts are still made, although no longer in New York and three owners later. A couple of years ago I thought about them again when my wife, Janet, was served an anisette cantucci with her coffee at a restaurant in Cape May, N.J.

“I can make that,” I said when she declared how much she liked it. Here’s a link to my favorite recipe, from Sally’s Baking Addiction, probably my favorite resource for sweet things: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/chocolate-dipped-almond-biscotti/

It’s a vcry easy recipe and has the additional advantage of being quite low-fat for a cookie, using only a half-stick of butter and a tablespoon of oil for 18 cookies. Sally doesn’t like anise, but I do, so I find that adding a tablespoon of anise extract or a couple of tablespoons of Sambucca will give the licorice-y flavor I like.

When made correctly they’re very crisp — hard, even, asking to be dunked in coffee — and not overly sweet. Follow the recipe and you’ll do fine. Two instructions I sometimes ignore, and am always sorry when I do:

  • Wait 10 minutes after the first bake before slicing the logs into the cookies before the second bake. If you don’t wait long enough the cut sides will crumble under your knife.
  • Don’t slice the cookies more than one inch thick. If you do, the sides of the cookies will be brown before the insides are completely cooked and they won’t be crisp.

The website recipe calls for a chocolate dipping with additional finely chopped almonds. Chocolate doesn’t do much for me and I’d rather avoid the extra 50 calories, so I usually skip that.

Even my first attempt came out very well, the sign of an easy and well-written recipe!

We freeze them, taking them out for company or liberating one when the spirit moves. They take well to experimentation — some folks like to put raisins, dried cherries or chocolate chips in them and I’m sure there are recipes for chocolate biscotti, which I’ve seen in bakeries.

I’ll take mine this way, or plain vanilla, even omitting the almonds if I feel too lazy to toast and chop them. Either way it’s a great cookie, easily made and even though it’s only reminiscent of the Stella D’Oro Anisette Toast I loved then, it’s still a sure-fire way for me to get back to my grandmother’s table where I sat so many years ago.

Nuts to You (in the Best Possible Way)

The more I think about the dishes I like to cook, the more I realize that I most enjoy the low-effort, big-return recipes that make a party a little more special.

This spiced nuts recipe comes from my brother, Ed, who used to make this in commercial quantities for a small supermarket in Washington State. It uses three pounds of nuts, but can easily be scaled down, and the nuts will keep for weeks in a tightly sealed container or in the freezer for several months. And the spice and sweetness levels can be adjusted to your taste, too, of course, but we think this is a reliable starting point.

The recipe calls for walnuts, but I’ve also made it with pecans. Peanuts (skinless only) would probably work, although I haven’t tried them. Next time I make this, I’ll probably try a mix of nuts.

I’ve made this recipe several times, every time a hit. The key is to keep the heat low, stir every 10 or 15 minutes, and give the nuts the time they need to dry out before taking them out of the oven. Do that, and you can create an easy, signature snack for your parties.

Ed’s Spiced Nuts

Ingredients

  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika (sweet)
  • 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3 egg whites from large eggs
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 3 pounds walnut halves or other nuts

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 300F. Prepare two half-sheet pans with parchment, which will make cleanup much easier.
  2. In a large bowl, beat egg whites and water until frothy.
  3. In a smaller bowl, mix dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, smoked paprika and ground cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps.
  4. Add nuts to the egg white mixture and stir until coated well and evenly.
  5. Sprinkle the nuts with the sugar mixture and toss to coat evenly.
  6. Bake at 300F in a single layer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the nuts are dry. Give yourself some time, as it could take longer.
  7. Remove from oven and separate nuts as they cool.
  8. When completely cool, pour the nuts into a bowl or container(s) for storing or freezing, breaking up any that are stuck together.

So Far, A Salute to Pork

2019-06-07 09.50.59
The two picnic shoulders after 17 1/2 hours on the smoker. They’ll rest for a while before I pull and sauce them.

The last two pork shoulders — these guys are picnics — just came off the Big Green Egg. They’re about 9 pounds each, with the bone, and I put them on at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. They went about 17 1/2 hours later with the pit temp raised to 250 after being at 225 until 5 a.m. I took them off when one was 195 and the other 198 internal.

I’ve also put away the last five pounds of pork belly, which I roasted this morning in the oven. I did 10 pounds last night. This morning’s will joined last night’s in foil with some of the liquid from the bottom of the pan, and will be heated and crisped tomorrow afternoon.

This roasted pork belly recipe is so good that the first time I made it for Janet she took one bite and then looked at me kind of angry, as if to say, “How do I know you for 13 years and this is the first time you’ve made this?”

2019-06-06 21.25.45
Last night’s roasted pork belly. It started out as 10 pounds, roasted another five this morning, just to be sure. Each of these pieces should make about 20 servings in little tortillas with gochujang sauce.

It’s really good and as easy as it gets and the recipe is entertaining, if pretty foul-mouthed, so be warned. It’s here: https://deadspin.com/how-to-cook-pork-belly-which-thoroughly-kicks-bacons-a-1619788169.

The briskets will go on next, and I’m worried about them, as I always do, because somehow I always find a way not to play it safe. A few years ago I tried to cook two behemoths without trimming especially well and I got about 30 pounds of burnt offerings when the drippings caught fire. I’m more careful about trimming now, even liberating that pocket of fat between the flat and the point, but I’m worried that the two chests, which weigh 40 pounds between them untrimmed, will be too big for the two racks on the Egg.

The worst case will be that I take the points off and trim up the ends to fit, because it would be better to have not quite enough than to serve bad brisket. I could also smoke it on the Pit Barrel Cooker — I’ve seen videos that show a 16-pounder being done in six hours, but I have to say that the finished product didn’t look that good to me.

Anyway, enough of the Hamlet moment. I’m going to trim my briskets and see what I’m getting myself into.

Syrup, The Cowboy Way

There is the right way, the wrong way, and sometimes the cowboy way — a shortcut that one uses for expedience or necessity.

I like to have simple syrup in the refrigerator for cold drinks, and especially for Old Fashioneds and mint juleps. But making it the right way tries my patience.

I know that to make either drink properly you’re supposed to muddle the sugar with the flavoring — bitters for the Old Fashioned, mint for the julep — but the sugar never dissolves completely. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience to do it right, it could be that, too.

Either way, I use syrup. A teaspoon of syrup into the Bourbon and bitters and your Old Fashioned just needs ice and garnish.

And I even make the syrup wrong, probably, but it works perfectly, I like it and it’s easy and so I’m going to tell you how to make it in case you don’t already know.

The way you’re supposed to make simple syrup is to heat the sugar in the water until it dissolves. Then you have to wait for it to cool and then you can put it in your container and into the fridge.

I don’t have the patience for this.

I just throw two parts sugar — I like raw, but you can use white — and one part water into the blender and let ‘er rip at the highest speed. Let it go for a good minute and then check to make sure everything’s dissolved. If it needs another 30 seconds in the blender, go ahead.

Then you pour it into a squeeze bottle or whatever you’re going to use, and you’re done.  I always use two parts sugar to one of water, because I like the viscosity that even a little of it gives to a drink. But one-to-one is fine, too, if that’s how you like it.

And if you don’t have a blender, you can even make syrup by putting your sugar and water into a covered container and shaking it really hard for two minutes, letting it sit for a minute, and then shaking it again for 30 seconds. This is too much trouble for me, but I’ve done it.

The blender trick also works for mint syrup, but here especially any purists who might come across this post will scoff, and I will scoff with them — it’s not the Right Way.

Still, it works and it tastes really good.

You just take a fistful of mint leaves, throw them in the blender with your two parts sugar and one part water and let it rip for a minute or two, maybe less in a Vitamix, until it looks like you couldn’t strain anything out of it in even the finest cheesecloth. Put it in your squeeze bottle or whatever and you have mint syrup.

It looks like cloudy green sludge, I warn you. But it tastes great — fresh mint and sugar. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator and it’s good in tea, too.

I realize that aside from the proportions of  two parts sugar to one part water, which makes a product that’s twice as concentrated as true simple syrup, I haven’t told you how much mint to use. The answer is that I haven’t found that it matters too much. I’ve used maybe a cup of leaves to two cups of sugar, and twice that much, and they were both sweet and minty.

So try it, and even if you live in Bucharest or New York City, you’ll still be making something very useful and tasty the cowboy way.

Meat, We Salute You

At the 2018 Salute to Meat, we had 71 guests, served 130 pounds of meat — some of which we wrapped and sent home with people — lovely music and a great time.

We also had the help of more than a half-dozen wonderful friends who helped serve food, set up and move things around the yard and sacrificed some of their own good time.

Paul, Steve and Dan
My friends Paul Caluori, Steve Kaplan and Dan Day, entertaining our crowd.

The kitchen work went the way things go every year, me running out to the smoker and cutting things in the kitchen, and I didn’t get to join the party until all the food had been served.

I remember a lot of meat, but also a lot of smiling faces and lovely compliments. The sky cleared during the afternoon after a long, dreary week of rain, and the weather was perfect.

It was a little tense, running out one course after another. But Janet and our friends Becky, Madonna, Sue, Donna and Sally ran assembly lines putting all the ingredients together for service on trays they carried. Everything except the brisket went out in finger-food portions, just a bite or two. I cut the brisket as people came into the kitchen for it, to keep it from drying out.

Kitchen food
These are the mini pastrami Reubens and the crostinis with steak and caramelized onions and blue cheese, back in the kitchen for people to pick at. Also on the table are Janet’s potato salad, beans and coleslaw.

I was least happy with the brisket, which was still pretty good. Both briskets came to a very thin end at the flat section, and I should have trimmed it off, perhaps grinding it for hamburger or sausage. After its long smoke that portion was overcooked and dry; possibly OK for hash, but maybe not much else.

It was like dust on a diamond, though. People stayed long after dark, talking and drinking, and the guests made the party. They mingled, talked to people they didn’t know, made friends. Every single guest was lovely, helpful and appreciative, and good company for everyone around them.

It was the kind of party for which every host dreams, an Everest achieved not for its food but for its totality, the good time people all seemed to have.

This afternoon the house is pretty much cleaned, except for the rented tables and chairs that the company will collect Tuesday. I need to return a couple of borrowed coolers and when the trash and recycling get hauled away there will be little evidence that we had a party.

But we’ll have plenty of wonderful memories.

AND NOW, THE RECIPE FOR HOMEMADE PASTRAMI, PROBABLY THE BEST THING I SERVED

Pastrami for the 2018 Salute
Janet made mini, open-faced Reubens from the pastrami. The Russian dressing is beneath the meat, then they got topped with sauerkraut and Swiss cheese before going under the broiler and then out to the guests.

I think everyone liked the pastrami the best. I had smoked it last Sunday and it took a long time to steam it from cold — about four hours — but it turned out really well. The recipe is from Serious Eats, and you can find it here: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/barbecue-pastrami-recipe.html.

If you make it, do remember that the author has omitted the last and absolutely necessary step of steaming the meat to a temperature of 195-203 degrees. If you don’t, you’re going to get tough, dry meat. You can do as I did, smoke it several days in advance and then steam it when you serve. If you do that, it could take anywhere between two and four hours to steam, depending on its weight and shape.

Even if you’re going to serve it cold, I say you have to steam it first, and then wrap and chill it when it comes down to 140 or so.

If you’re going to serve it the same day you smoke it, when the internal temperature hits 165 you could wrap it tightly in heavy duty foil, maybe with a little water or beer, and then let it steam that way until it got to 200-203.  Let it rest, still wrapped — an hour isn’t too long —  and then you’re ready to cut it and serve to your grateful guests, or keep for yourself!

A lighter ice cream

I wanted to make gelato for our friends who came to dinner last weekend, and my wife had bought a half-pint of heavy cream that we had thought to whip and use on top of strawberry-covered pound cake.

But we had an extra quart of whole milk in the fridge that we wanted to use and so I modified the gelato recipe we normally use to incorporate the small amount of cream, and now we have a gelato cum ice cream cum ice milk that not only tastes delicious the day you make it, but keeps much better than your basic uncooked gelato recipe.

Here it is:

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 packet (or 5.3 ounces) of nonfat dry milk powder
1 tsp vanilla extract (maybe a little more if you like, but no more than 1 1/4 tsp.)

That’s the whole thing. Blend it in your blender, chill it and freeze it according to your manufacturer’s directions, and you’re done. Some folks might want to up the sugar to 3/4 cup but I think that’s pushing it. No harm done if you want to try it that way.

In any event, the milk powder absorbs the water in the milk and helps, with the small amount of cream, to emulsify the mix so that it doesn’t go grainy on you by the second day. I tried ours on the second day, when our regular gelato has begun to get icy, and it was perfect.

It didn’t last a third day.

I think you could add four shots of chilled espresso (or espresso powder) to make coffee ice cream, or cinnamon. You could macerate some berries in a lot of sugar or Cointreau, Grand Marnier or framboise and add them to the mix when it was partly frozen — the sugar or alcohol will keep the berries from turning into bullets in your mouth.

So, OK: It’s not exactly gelato, and it’s not ice cream and it’s not ice milk. But it’s incredibly easy, and really good — even on the second day.