Country Rhubarb Cake

In the hills near the Irish Sea, a once cavernous apple barn is now a bustling school. A school for baking and butchering, for cheese making and gardening, for braising and grilling and all the skills that bring the land’s bounty to the table. Professional cooks, gap year teenagers, and second career seekers join this band intent on stuffing as much learning and practice into a weekend or a 12-week session as the day’s hours allow. They begin early, stay late, pack extras into the weekends and team up after hours to cook in resident cottages. It’s a cook’s dream, a colony of like-minded souls gathered on an organic farm. The Ballymaloe Cookery School welcomes all who seek the world of good food.

After several years absence I opened the wooden gate, and walked into the familiar halls. They were all still there, Florie whisking a student’s sauce, Sue testing jam for the set, Maime lining cake tins, Rosie checking a roast chicken, Sharon typing away in the office, Emer and Pam filling trays in the larder, Eileen bring in herbs, Julia stirring pesto, Rachel swirling icing, Rory selecting wild garlic flowers, while Darina continued to lead her team.

Morning hours spin through confits, terrines, consommés, croissants, custards, cakes, curries, salads, and stews. Everyone pauses in the sun-bathed dining room for a lunch of the morning’s work, then they’re back for the afternoon session. After crafting a line of fancy pastries, at the end of the day, you’ll welcome a good cup of tea and the comforting slice of a country rhubarb cake.

Rhubarb’s now available in our farmers markets and you’ll find the flavor of garden-grown rhubarb far superior to the blander light pink hot-house rhubarb often available in supermarkets. This simple rhubarb cake from an Irish farmhouse tradition uses a soft scone dough rather than richer pie pastry.

Country Rhubarb Cake  adapted from Irish Traditional  Cooking by Darina Allen

6 oz. all purpose flour (1 cup + ¼ scant cup)

1 oz. sugar (2 tablespoons)

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 ½ oz. butter (3 tablespoons)

1 egg*

buttermilk or plain yogurt*

8 oz. thinly sliced rhubarb  (1 ½ cups)

2 ½ oz. sugar (1/3 cup)

additional sugar for topping

* beat 1 egg in a liquid measuring cup. Remove 1 tablespoon beaten egg and set aside in a small bowl to use for egg wash.  Add buttermilk or plain yogurt to the remaining egg until the mixture measures ½ cup. Yogurt is often thicker than buttermilk; start with 1 tablespoon less if using buttermilk.

Preheat the oven to 375º.  Butter a 7 or 8-inch round, flat baking dish.

Sift together  flour, 1 oz. sugar, salt and soda. Slice the butter and rub it into the flour using your fingertips until it flakes. Make a well in the center and pour in the mixed egg and yogurt or buttermilk. Stir together quickly with your hand or a rubber spatula to form a soft dough. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead very briefly. Divide in half.

Pat and roll half the dough to an 8-inch circle. (To make the circle easier to lift off the counter, roll it on a large piece of plastic wrap.) Slip your hand under the plastic wrap, lift and flop the dough circle into the center of the buttered baking dish; peel away plastic wrap. Mound the sliced rhubarb in the center, leaving a clean inch of dough around the edge. Sprinkle the 2 ½ oz. sugar over the rhubarb.  Roll the second half of dough on plastic wrap to a 9-inch circle. Brush the edge of the dough in the pan with water. Lift the 9-inch circle underneath the plastic wrap, drap it over the rhubarb mound and seal the dampened edges all around making an even decorative edge.

Brush the cake with the remaining beaten egg and sprinkle generously with sugar. Place the cake in the preheated oven and reduce the heat to 350º. Bake the cake 30-40 minutes or until golden. Some juices may run into the crust, but that’s OK. Let the cake stand 15 minutes to settle juices before cutting. Serve with whipped cream and extra poached rhubarb if desired. Serves 4-6

Double this recipe to fill a 9 or 10-inch round pie dish. Use 1 extra large egg and enough buttermilk or yogurt to measure 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon and up to 3 cups sliced rhubarb if it will fit under the larger crust. Bake 10 min. longer and there’ll be enough for 10.

Irish Tartine

You can find anything you want in Wendy’s Ballymaloe (pronounced Bal-ly-ma-loo) Shop. There are Irish sweaters, a tree of hats and a rainbow stack of scarves. There are gloves and bags, baby blankets and toys. Special chocolates, jams, chutneys, oatmeals and tea fill a corner. Books, cards, table linens, pillows and a wall of Nicholas Moss pottery take up a room next to the cook’s dream kitchen shop packed with Italian pots, French baking tins, knives and gadgets galore plus English Burleigh ware. There’s even a shelf of Spanish wines and a fridge for farmhouse cheeses and smoked fish. Once you’ve perused this splendid Irish shop, there’s a place for lunch or tea at The Café at the Back of the Shop.

Alison runs the café where she presents simple, honest dishes composed to perfection. There’s always an array of cakes and tarts to accompany espresso coffees, and the luncheon offerings showcase many of Ireland’s best foods. Alison’s open sandwiches offer ultimate tartines.

She begins with her homemade soft brown bread laced with sunflower seeds and spread with Bandon butter. Next comes a gentle mound of small organic salad leaves gathered from a nearby greenhouse and dressed with virgin olive oil vinaigrette. On top of the salad there’ll be sliced smoked fish, roast pork, rare beef or local cheddar cheese. At the side a mound of quick cucumber pickle and a dollop of perfect homemade mayonnaise or tomato relish completes the plate. This is not a two-fisted manwich lunch, but a knife-and-fork tartine where a corner of the salad-topped bread, plus some fish and a sliver of pickle, all go onto the back of a fork for delicious mouthfuls. Here’s a sandwich that may be a small plate affair, but in its excellence and balance makes a perfect lunch.

Alison’s Open Sandwich (from The Café at the End of the Shop) for each serving:

Sliced brown bread (Ballymaloe Brown Bread, Jan. 20, 2012)

Soft butter

Small salad leaves

Olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt

Sliced smoked salmon, or flaked poached salmon (or sliced roast beef, pork or chicken)

Quick cucumber pickle (recipe follows)

Dollop of whole milk yogurt or homemade mayonnaise

Fresh chives or parsley, chopped

Mix the clean salad leaves with a twirl of extra virgin olive oil and a few drops of fresh lemon juice to taste. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Spread the bread with butter, mound dressed salad on top and crown with fish, meat or cheese of choice. Sprinkle with chopped herbs and freshly ground black pepper. Accompany with cucumber pickle and mayonnaise or yogurt if desired.

Quick Cucumber Pickle

1 ½ cups thinly sliced cucumber

1 or 2 thinly sliced green onions, or ¼ sweet onion

¼ cup sugar

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

generous pinch salt.

Mix all together and let stand at least an hour if possible or use at once. Add chopped dill or parsley.

Quick French Chix

Winds may blow us off course, but eventually set us back down where we began. I’ve boned whole chickens, stuffed them with exotic rice and preserved lemons, bathed them in sauces of mushrooms, pistachios, fresh herbs and creme fraiche, but sometimes I’m ready for some simple fried chicken. I’m not interested in the boneless, battered, deep-fried model but just an honest piece of flavorful, free-range chicken seared until the skin is crispy, the meat juicy and bathed with a simple reduction of greaseless pan glazing.

Long ago I learned all it takes in addition to my heirloom cast-iron skillet, a swirl of oil, and a few cloves of garlic is a splash of common red wine vinegar. I’ve repeated this chicken sauté countless times over the decades with slight variations along the way, and it’s always a favorite. Diners will never guess the secret ingredient is vinegar that sweetens, tenderizes and moistens the chicken.

Country cooks have long known the benefits of using vinegar, one of the oldest kitchen staples. All you need are five ingredients, along with salt and pepper and half an hour to recreate the version of fried chicken that made Paul Bocuse a celebrity chef forty years ago. Even if you hesitate at the vinegar idea, you’ll want to give this healthy, tasty alternative a chance. It’s not necessary to use fancy balsamic, sherry or champagne vinegars here; simple salad vinegar, red wine or cider, is fine. For any pan-fried chicken, choose bone-in pieces that boost calcium, hold in moisture—and as most chicken aficionados know, the choice pieces are dark.

French Style Sautéed Vinegar Chicken

4 leg/thigh pieces of free-range chicken (about 2 1/2 lbs.), or one 3-lb. chicken cut in pieces.

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil

6-8 large whole cloves garlic

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon flour

1 teaspoon tomato paste, Dijon mustard or 1 chopped fresh

tomato

3/4 cup (6 fl. oz.) chicken stock

Cut through the underside fat line between the knee and thigh joint to make two pieces or just sever the tendon so the joint will lie flat as it cooks. Blot chicken dry with paper towels and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Swirl oil in a heavy iron skillet and heat until oil shimmers. Find a lid or a baking sheet that will cover the skillet tightly, and set aside. Using tongs, add chicken pieces, skin side down. Distribute whole, unpeeled garlic cloves among chicken pieces. Sauté over moderately high heat for ten minutes. Turn chicken, which should be deeply golden, and cook for ten minutes on the other side. At this point the chicken should be almost cooked through.

Remove chicken and garlic to a plate, and pour fat from pan (there may be as much as 4-5 tablespoons excess fat). Return chicken and garlic to skillet; bring heat back up. Measure 4 tablespoons vinegar. Once the chicken is again sizzling, pour the vinegar over the chicken and immediately cover with lid and steam the chicken for 5 minutes.  Remove the lid; again remove chicken and garlic from the skillet which will be filmed with a sticky residue from the vinegar and chicken juices; this is the precious bit to turn into a glazing sauce.

Work the teaspoon of flour into the little bit of remaining fat, and add tomato paste, mustard or diced whole tomato. Whisk in chicken stock and boil up quickly to form a light sauce. Return the chicken and garlic to the pan, coat with sauce and simmer a few seconds. Serve with sauce glaze, whole soft garlic cloves and a sprinkling of fresh parsley and chives. Serves 4. Any leftovers make excellent room-temperature picnic bits.

 

 

 

Scones

Fatigued by late winter, I’ll think of Ireland. There, traditional spring arrives on St. Bridget’s Day, the first of February, when daffodils line country lanes, primroses pop up in rock walls and white bells of wild garlic swing alongside village paths where the meadows are always green.

Though Ireland is more than ten degrees (latitude) north of Chicago, the Gulf Stream warms the land. South of Dublin there’s scarcely ever snow or ice; winter vegetables such as leeks, broccoli and kale stand ready in kitchen gardens even in the coolest season. Farther north of the equator means less sun in the day, but as March approaches a good stretch of light sails into early evening, and birds break into dawn chorus with morning coffee. Once you arrive on the island, you’ll be assured of a good pot of tea and a plate of perfect scones.

Americans aren’t content with the best scones, the simple, light “floury” ones with just a hint of sugar and maybe a few currants or raisins. No, we have to gussy them up with too much butter,  dried cranberries, chocolate chips, extra flavorings and grains until they’re often leaden lumps of baked dough distant from their ancestral roots.

When winter’s still on the sill and afternoon tea beckons, consider a tray of scones. These quick breads take about five minutes to stir together, twelve minutes to bake, fill the room with great home-cooked aromas, and charm the blarney out of all ages. With soft butter and a blob of bright homemade jam, Irish scones are the ticket for a daydream.

Scones

Try this small recipe to learn the technique, then double the amounts for a larger batch and store some in the freezer.

8 oz. all purpose flour (1 3/4 cups)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 oz. butter (3 tablespoons)

1 egg

3 1/2 oz. milk (1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon)

1 oz. currants, raisins (1/4 cup) (optional)

granulated sugar on a saucer

Preheat oven to 450°F. Have ready a baking sheet lightly sprinkled with flour, lined with parchment or silpat mat.

Beat egg in liquid measuring cup; remove 1 tablespoon and save in small cup for egg wash. Add milk to the remaining egg (the total should measure 2/3 cup); whisk together.

Sift together flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, salt and baking powder. Cut butter into slices and rub into flour with your fingertips.

Make a well in center of dry ingredients. Add milk mixture and begin to mix with your hand or rubber spatula, sprinkling in raisins or currants. Once dry mixture is thoroughly moistened, scrape scone dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead lightly to bring the dough together, scrape dough from your hands and pat or roll to circle 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 7-8 2 1/2 inch scones, re-rolling scraps. Place scones on baking sheet, brush tops with reserved egg wash, and dip each top in sugar.

Bake in preheated oven 12-14 minutes or until lightly brown. (Finished scones should be 1 ½ inches high.) Serve warm or at room temperature with butter or whipped cream and jam.

Note:  If your baking powder is not fresh, make your own by combining baking soda and cream of tartar. Mix 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar with 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to equal leavening of 1 teaspoon baking powder. For this recipe use 1 teaspoon cream of tartar + 1/2 teaspoon soda.

Mexican Green Salsa

The birria woman commands her white wooden street-food cube on the corner of Madero and Constitución. There’s always a group of eaters on her benches when the window flaps are down and the hand-pressed tortillas are flicked from a hot griddle. Elbow to elbow three women chop onions, fill tacos and assemble garnishes for the famous Jalisco birria, spoon-tender beef cooked in chili-scented broth, simmering in a giant cauldron. When in tapatío country, it’s a specialty not to be missed.

Street food vendors often provide the best authentic local cooking in Mexico. Use common sense, and it will be easy to spot safe street stands. With wide-open cooking and serving areas, cleanliness is on display. It’s also wise to observe who’s gobbling up the offerings handwritten on a menu board above the work area. The birria stand’s white-aproned workers with their hair tightly netted keep the counters scrubbed and the day’s ingredients neatly stowed, although the pace of plating never seems to let up.

Whether you order a bowl of the specialty stewed beef complete with fresh tortillas, chopped onions and limes, or a taco plate, homemade salsas in plastic squeeze bottles wait for the taking. There’s always a dark red picante sauce made from ground chiles arbol, and a tart green sauce made from tomatillos (Mexican green tomatoes in papery husks) and green chili. Both salsas are easy and inexpensive to prepare and will give you the chance to really cook Mexican in just a few minutes. My favorite version of the green salsa, always a winter favorite, came from one of Jodie’s culinary adventures. Here’s a three-ingredient wonder sauce prepared in the traditional way on the stovetop. With a pound of tomatillos and a couple of Serrano chilis you’ll wonder why you ever paid so much for a jar of store-bought salsa. All you need is a frying pan, a lid and a blender.

Jodie’s Green Salsa

1  tablespoon pure olive oil

1 lb. tomatillos (5-6) husked and washed

1-2 serrano chilis washed

3-4 unpeeled garlic cloves

½ teaspoon salt

Film a heavy frying pan with oil. Add the tomatillos, whole chilis and garlic cloves. Cover and cook over medium/low heat for 20-25 minutes, turning the tomatillos and chilis halfway through, or until everthing is soft. The tomatillos and the chilis may brown lightly. Turn off heat, leave covered and allow to cool until cooked items are cool enough to handle.

Cut the cores from the tomatillos; peel the skin from the chilis and remove stems. Pinch the soft cooked garlic out of their papers. Reserve one whole cooked chili in case the salsa is hot enough with one chili. (I always cook two, but usually use only one in the sauce.)

Scrape the tomatillos, garlic and one whole chili into a blender along with all the cooked juices. Add ½ teaspoon salt and blend to a puree. Use the salsa as it is with chips, for tacos, salads, sandwiches or thin with some stock for an enchilada sauce. Jazz up the salsa with some finely chopped white onion or scallions, cilantro and diced avocado. Makes 2 cups; keeps 5 days in the fridge.

 

 

 

Ballymaloe Brown Yeast Bread

I’m not sure if I fell in love with Ireland over a slice of brown bread or a taste of Irish Coffee Meringue. But I know that Irish brown bread has been a mainstay for generations. How can anyone not want this loaf to replace the factory fluff that fills breadboxes in most homes? When home baking can be as simple as this recipe, I’ve never understood why the whole country hasn’t taken to it. Everyone’s crying for better food, purer food, healthier food, less fat, more fiber, a key to good health—and here’s the first step.

No one seems to have time to slice bread anymore, but if once a week you spend ten minutes with this dough and give it 1 ½ hours from start to finish (most of this time doesn’t demand any hands-on attention) you’ll have three small, fat-free loaves to carry you through a week. A five-pound bag of flour at Whole Foods costs less than three dollars and will give you fifteen loaves. They’re pure, they’re good for you; they’ll change your life.

Ireland has moved way beyond the boiled cabbage rap of the past. The farm-to-table movement is stronger in Ireland than almost anyplace else. Artisan bakers, cheese makers, abound. Farmers’ markets flourish from Dublin and Cork to Galway and Belfast. The overall quality of food available, even in out-of-the-way villages, makes the simplest cooking outstanding. It’s easily possible to cook and dine better in Ireland today than in France. We Americans can learn a lot from the emerald isle.

When Peter came to my door the other day bearing fifty-pound bags of flour from a distributor in the city, I rejoiced. I could finally lay my hands on medium-grind whole-wheat flour ideal for yeast bread. Unfortunately this coarser grind is not commonly available in supermarkets. The finer grind will suffice with the addition of a little more liquid, but keep your eyes peeled for the baker’s dream flour as you shop. I wanted to tell Peter to check my blog for the Ballymaloe Brown Bread; when I found I hadn’t yet posted the item, I knew my next task. Well, here it is with hopes it brings you new views about bread, the will to bake and a longing to visit Ireland.

This moist bread will keep well for three days. I usually bake small loaves and store a couple in the freezer. The bread needs to be thoroughly cool before slicing, and if it is sliced before freezing it’s easy to snap out a couple of slices and pop them in a toaster for an almost-fresh-from-the-oven flavor.

Ballymaloe Brown Yeast Bread

This is an American adaptation of the famous Brown Yeast Bread prepared daily at the Ballymaloe House in Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland.

16 fl. oz. lukewarm water (2 cups)

1 tablespoon dark molasses

1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1 lb. whole-wheat flour (3 1/4 cups)*

1 slightly rounded teaspoon salt

tiny pinch ground ginger (optional)

lightly toasted brown sesame seeds (optional)

Dissolve molasses in warm water and sprinkle yeast over top. Set aside and allow yeast to dissolve in the water. Meanwhile, combine flour, salt and ginger in medium bowl; make a well in center. When yeast has dissolved, stir it into water and pour liquid into flour. Mix with your clean hand or a rubber spatula until all flour has moistened into damp dough. It should be the consistency of a thick muffin batter. Finely milled flour will ask for a little more water.

Scrape your hand clean. Cover bowl with tea towel; set it in a warm place and allow to rise for 20-30 minutes or until dough is light. (If time does not permit this first rising, go straight to next step. In Ireland this first rising is omitted; however, I have found it helpful with our flour.)

Butter or grease 1 large loaf tin, two 3 1/2-by-7 1/2-inch tins, or three 6-by-3 1/2 -inch tins. After dough has risen, fold it down with your hand and scoop into tins. Smooth top with damp fingers; sprinkle with sesame seeds; cover with tea towel and set aside to rise. Preheat oven to 450°F. If dough half fills tin, it should rise until it comes to top edge. This second rising takes 20-30 minutes, depending on warmth of room.

Bake loaves for 25-40 minutes, depending on their size, or until nicely browned. Remove loaves from tins at once (the loaf should sound hollow when knocked with a fist). Return loaves to oven without tins for further crisping if desired. Allow bread to cool on wire racks before slicing. This bread slices easily when fully cool, but it will be sticky inside if sliced while warm.

* whole wheat flour for yeast baking is best ground from hard wheat

 

 

 

Rice Pudding

He was a staunch potato eater. Occasionally a bowl of spaghetti appeared on the table, but when rice was mentioned, he raised his eyebrows and grumbled, “Rice is for Chine-eeez.” The rest of us slumped in our seats longing for the exotica of chow mein, chop suey and egg foo young alongside bowls of fluffy white stuff.

The only exception to the forbidden grain came with rice pudding. Sometimes we saw squares of rice custard dusted with nutmeg, but the best ever was milky sweet rice that came to the kitchen table on Glenwood Avenue as a side dish along with fried venison steaks, Roman Meal bread and slow-cooked green beans with bacon.

Once the holiday cookie tins are bare and we’re ready to accompany winter with hearty soups and stews for supper, there’s no better comfort than a cup of simple rice pudding for dessert. Rice pud’s perfect for a snow day when you need to make do with what’s on hand and still hope for an evening treat. Let’s count on milk and butter in the fridge, rice and sugar in the pantry and a vanilla bean or extract on the shelf.

If there’s any chance for a rice selection, choose a round grain variety such as Japanese, Egyptian, Italian, Spanish, or any basic round rice. In a pinch use long grain if that’s all there is and the streets are snow-packed. Give the pudding time to simmer on a slow burner. Once it has thickened to a soft cream, spoon it into cups and garnish with a spoonful of homemade jam. Then wrap up in a blanket and return to Harry Potter.

 Simple Rice Pudding

2  cups whole milk (16 fl. oz.)

pinch salt

½ vanilla bean, split and scraped (or ½ teaspoon vanilla)

toothpick size cinnamon stick or larger shard of canela

2 strips, yellow only, lemon peel (optional)

¼ cup round rice (Japanese, Egyptian, Arborio or other)

3–4 tablespoons sugar

½ tablespoon unsalted butter (optional)

Rinse a heavy saucepan with water, add milk, salt, vanilla (add extract after cooking), cinnamon, lemon peel, rice and place covered over low heat.

Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30–40 minutes or until rice is tender. Add sugar, butter and simmer another 10–15 minutes or until nicely thickened. Remove cinnamon and lemon peels. Serve warm with a spoonful of homemade jam or fresh cranberry sauce, or cool and add a generous spoonful of whipped cream for an imperial rice pudding. Serves 3 to 4.

Quick Jam Topping

6 oz. frozen mixed berries (1 cup)

3 oz. sugar (1/2 cup – 1 tablespoon)

Combine over moderate heat until berries melt and sugar dissolves. Boil up quickly until thickened enough for jam.

 

 

Potato Gratin

Holiday dinners on the shoulders of the worn out cook trying to keep up a cheerful face inevitably carry a shroud for disaster. This year I had everything down pat, easy stuff I could almost pull together in my sleep, but I wasn’t cooking at home. There, in my son’s spacious new culinary domain where ne’er a drop of pomegranate juice had stained the granite nor a green scrubbie had marred the stainless, I set to work.

The trimming, chopping, tying had been done ahead, so all I needed to do was pop the potato gratin in a hot oven, sear the beef tenderloin, heat the port and mushroom sauce and blanch a bowl of green beans. The children scrambled on the floor with new gifts while their mother walked out for coffee; their father went upstairs to shower, and I faced the stove.

I pulled the oval shallow le Creuset baker filled with bubbling garlic-laced milk and melted butter from the oven, added sliced Yukon Golds and lightly strewed-over grated Gruyère. Grasping the sides of the baker with a large towel, I moved toward the open oven door. The baker slipped on the rounded edge of the oven rack and potatoes, along with a generous spill of hot milk, splashed into the hot well of the oven window. I couldn’t find a pancake turner, a bench scraper or any flat implement beyond a small rubber spatula to bail milk from the window well. Onto the floor I threw everything the tiny spatula could carry before I began mopping with a large soapy cloth. The oven was off and the window looked good. I cleaned the bottom of the oven door, polished the window, and when I lifted the door into the closed position, one last stream of milk fell between the sealed glass panes of the oven window. A towel now hangs over the blemish, and I’m in the doghouse.

I may not want to put a pan of spuds into that big Wolf oven again for a while, but a Gratin Dauphionois is still one of the best potato dishes to serve alongside a roast or almost anything else. It’s a meal in itself, delicious the next day and one of the all time favorite winter potato dishes to remember. Note: Do not use a baker smaller than one that will hold 2 quarts or 8 cups; otherwise the milk will boil over, blacken your oven and fill your kitchen with smoke.

Gratin Dauphinois

2  lbs. Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes

scant tablespoon finely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

generous grinding white or black pepper

8 fl. oz. whole milk (1 cup)

4 fl. oz. heavy cream (1/2 cup)*

1 1/2 oz. butter (3 tablespoons)*

2 oz. grated cheese, Gruyère or aged white cheddar (1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Sprinkle chopped garlic, salt and pepper in a 2-quart low oval or rectangular baking dish. Add milk, cream and sliced butter. Place in oven to heat.

Peel and cut potatoes into 1/8-inch slices. (Measure a heaped quart.) This step may be done 30 minutes ahead; cover sliced potatoes with cold water.

Remove hot baking dish with simmering milk from oven. Evenly strew in sliced potatoes. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Return to oven.

Bake 25–40 minutes. The top should be golden brown and potatoes fork-tender. If potatoes seem dry, add 2 tablespoons water and let rest a few minutes. Serves 6.

*If you choose to omit cream, increase milk to 1 1/2 cups and butter to 2 oz. or 4 tablespoons.

Powdered Balls

When the Christmas cookie bake-off comes to my door, there’s no contest. My all-time favorite at home and abroad, the cookie with many different names, yet the same formula in every country is what we informally call “powdered balls.” To Greeks, they’re Kourabiathes; for Mexicans, Wedding Cakes; for Russians, Tea Cakes; for Spaniards, Polvorones. Here’s a basic butter shortbread cookie elegantly robed in confectioner’s sugar. To sample these cookies at their best, it’s wise to get on the go in early December. Pack them in a tight tin, hide them in a cool place and give them a week or two to develop flavor.

The first recipe I have, still penned in primary school cursive, came from a music teacher who called them Chinese Dreams. Though there’s nothing Asian about these sweet morsels, they introduced me to a long line of siblings.

I discovered the Greek version first when the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church put on a fundraising dinner in my grade school gymnasium. Years later I found the best example at a small bakery down an alley near the pier in the island town of Hydra. I can’t quite remember where I learned to add a tiny drop of anise oil to the cookies, but it’s a master trick of catalytic flavoring that works magic with any plain butter cookie. Anise oil is not anise flavoring and may be purchased from a pharmacy. A minuscule bottle will last for eons, producing enhanced butter cookie flavor. When you stick a toothpick in the bottle and lift out one drop, there’ll be no licorice overtones. For the melt-in-your-mouth Christmas cookie, bake now.

Powdered Balls

4 oz. softened unsalted butter (1 stick)

1 oz. powdered sugar (1/4 cup)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 drop anise oil (optional)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons brandy

4 oz. all-purpose flour (1 spooned in cup)

2 oz. chopped pecans or blanched roasted almonds (1/2 cup)

additional powdered sugar

Cream butter with sugar until white and fluffy. Beat in salt, anise, vanilla and brandy. Sift and stir in flour. Mix in nuts. Cover and allow dough to stand at least an hour or overnight at room temperature. This rest allows flour to absorb moisture. The dough is then ready to roll into balls.

Scrape dough onto lightly floured surface. Roll into thick 6-inch log; cut the log in half lengthwise and then in lengthwise quarters. Cut each quarter in half and each half in thirds. There will be 24 even pieces. Roll each piece into a large cherry-sized ball. Place on parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake cookies in preheated 325°F oven for 18–20 minutes. Cookies will be pale, but they should be lightly browned on bottom. Line cookie tin or plastic box with sheet of waxed paper. Sift layer of powdered sugar over paper. When cookies are cool enough to handle, place in neat rows on top of sugar-dusted paper. Sift generous layer of powdered sugar over cookies. Layer cookies, placing a sheet of waxed paper between and covering each layer with generous dusting of powdered sugar. Store airtight.

(Note: After you finish cookies, save remnants of powdered sugar. It is buttery and perfumed and may be used in sweet tart pastry or next batch of cookies.)

To make 8 dozen: Use 1 lb. butter, 4 oz. powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 drops anise oil, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 2 tablespoons brandy, 1 lb. flour, 8 oz. nuts.

Sweet Potato Salad

Tradition takes over Thanksgiving dinner as families replay set-in-stone game plans. My grandmother always served candied sweets with marshmallows, but when I spread out the menu and wanted to serve wine, a sugary side dish didn’t fit. I jostled several sweet potato ideas until an assignment for a November supper buffet using traditional Thanksgiving basics gave me this sweet potato salad I adopted decades ago.

Sweet potatoes, fully a New World vegetable, were on the scene centuries ago, even before the dawn of the white potato. European navigators in the wake of Columbus brought the sweet potato north to colonial America from Mexico and South America. These sweet, orange root vegetables give us generous doses of beta carotene and should never be called “yams,” which are tropical, bland, starchy tubers often weighing well over ten pounds each. The yam in sub-Saharan Africa finds its place alongside the cassava root and is commonly boiled, mashed, pounded and shaped into balls used to scoop up spicy stews. Botanically the yam is in the grass family while the sweet potato is a member of the morning glory clan.

Here’s a do-ahead dish that doesn’t need to be reheated, a dish for a day too busy with turkey and gravy. It’s light, zesty and gives a great splash of color on each plate. Choose evenly sized sweet potatoes to bake or steam; the only slightly unusual extra you’ll need to have on hand is fresh ginger. This salad keeps well and will be a hearty complement to leftover turkey sandwiches.

Sweet Potato Salad

3 medium sweet potatoes (1 1/4 lbs.)

3 tablespoons finely chopped green onions

1 medium carrot (4 oz.)

1 small clove garlic mashed with ¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon red or white wine vinegar

1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger (use microplane)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

chopped fresh parsley or cilantro

Bake sweet potatoes on small sheet pan in 350°F to 400°F oven until soft.

Meanwhile, chop onion; peel and cut carrot into 1/8-inch dice. Steam or blanch carrot briefly to intensify color. Carrot should retain a bite. Make vinaigrette with garlic, vinegar, lemon juice, ginger and oil.

As soon as baked sweet potatoes can be handled (be sure to work with them while they are still very warm), peel and cut sweet potatoes into large dice. Many of them will break apart, but that is O.K.

In a shallow, large bowl, fold onion, carrot and vinaigrette mixture into diced, warm sweet potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, more lemon if needed; garnish with pomegranate seeds and parsley. Makes a generous pound, enough for 4-6. Serve at room temperature.

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