Sunday, November 23, 2014

Chanterelle Toast

Walking in the forest on a brisk autumn day, basket in hand, on a mushroom hunt, is one of the finest activities I know.  Our dog practically jumps for joy, his tail wagging so hard that one is afraid it might fall off, as he runs in circles around us.  We walk slowly, scattered through the forest, eyes peeled for a glimpse of elusive apricot gold treasure. Blueberry bushes tempt us with their sweetness and we slow down as we pluck them, cold, juicy and tart, our fingers and tongues staining purple. Suddenly, one of us spots a flash of gold….breath held…to root among the fallen leaves…breath released in disappointment..just a burnished leaf.  But oh! Now a cry echos in the air: “Chanterelle!” calls out one of the boys.  We all rush over, treading carefully as we come near.  Chanterelle are a social creature, once you see one, there are almost always others nearby.  There is one half buried under some leaves, and more over there by the moss.  Oh, and look, there is one that you almost stepped on just by your foot!

After some hours of searching, we are rosy cheeked and ready for a rest.  Some fallen logs in a mossy spot will do for a picnic.  A few simple sandwiches or some cinnamon rolls with coffee will give us some more energy for the hunt.  And though we frown upon letting the dog have food while we eat, in the forest we relax the rules and he has a sandwich too.

Another hour or two, our baskets our full, and our legs are tired.  We make our way back home.  We all sit at the table to clean the mushrooms, cutting off dirty stems and brushing pine needles carefully off with a brush.  Into the pan they go with a large pat of butter, and then a slog of cream.  Heaped onto toast, the chanterelles are gone in a flash, leaving us to fight over the last creamy morsels in the pan.

4 servings

4 handfuls of chanterelle mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
½ cup or so of cream
Salt and pepper to taste
4 slices of good white bread

Cut the chanterelle to bite size pieces.  Take a pan and add the butter and put over a high heat.  When the butter is melted, add the chanterelle.  Fry on high heat until the chanterelle start to take on some color.  Add the cream and salt and pepper to taste.  Bring the cream to a boil and then turn the heat down to low.  Let the mushrooms simmer in the cream for 5 minutes or so until the cream thickens.  Meanwhile, toast the bread and put a slice of bread on each plate.  Pile the mushroom mixture onto each of the toasts.  Eat immediately.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Crepes Suzette

Summer Evening by P.S. Kroyer, 1893

There is a tiny town at the very Northern tip of Denmark called Skagen.  It is a magical place with the whitest sand, bluest seas, and an extra special light which has been a siren’s song to artists for hundreds of years.  You can walk out on the beach to the end of land and see where two different seas collide into one another, which is a magical sight all by itself.  In the very charming old town, there is a charming hotel called Brondrums.  In its heyday, artists flocked to stay at this hotel and paint lovely ladies in lace dresses strolling on the surrounding beaches.  Today it is still a quaint and charming hotel with a delicious French-influenced restaurant.  And here, unbowed by culinary fashions, very proper waiters serve delicious old-fashioned food at white clothed tables.  My young boys were absolutely fascinated at the Crepes Suzette that were prepared and flamed in front of them at the table.  Every now and then, they say to me “Oh, do you remember those pancakes that were on fire…I wish we could have them again.”  So, after a time, I felt inclined to recreate those pancakes for them.  And they were delicious.  This classic grand dame deserves to return to the table.


Serves 4 to 5


For the pancakes
100 grams flour (1 ½ deciliters)
2 eggs
200 ml milk
Zest of one orange
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted

For the sauce
150 ml orange juice (about 2 to 3 oranges)
Zest of oranges
Juice of one lemon plus zest
2 tablespoons sugar
50 grams butter
About 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or Cointreau
To prepare the pancakes, beat the eggs and milk.

Vanilla icecream to serve.

For the pancakes, beat the eggs and milk together.  Add the flour and sugar and beat until completely smooth.  Stir in the orange zest and melted butter.  You can prepare this batter in advance and let it sit an hour or so, if you like.  To prepare the pancakes, heat a pan very hot, then turn it down a bit.  If you are using a nonstick pan, you don’t have to really use butter, but if you aren’t then swipe the pan with a paper towel with a bit of butter on it between each pancake.  Pour about two tablespoons of batter onto the pan, swirling it around to form a very thin pancake.  This is tricky to do and you may have to go through a couple to get the hang of it.  But don’t worry if they are not round and perfect, you really won’t notice it in the final dish.  It should take less than a minute to cook.  You will see the very edges go brown and then it is time to flip.  The other side will only take a few seconds to cook.  Lay the pancakes on a plate with a bit of wax paper or parchment paper in between each pancake so that they don’t stick together.  You can prepare the pancakes well in advance.  This batter should make between 10 to 15 pancakes, about 6 inches in diameter.

When you are ready to eat, prepare the sauce.  Have all the ingredients pre-measured and ready at the side of your pan.  Heat the sugar over a medium heat until it liquefies and starts to caramelize.  Note that once the sugar starts to color it will go from light gold to burnt very quickly!  Plop the butter in the pan and stir.  Pour in the juices and the zest.  Stir vigorously until all the caramel has melted into the juice.  Let the sauce simmer for a bit until the sauce reduces and thickens slightly.  Take a crepe and fold it in half, lay it in the sauce and then flip it over so that both sides are covered with sauce.  Fold the crepe into fourths and push it to the side of the pan.  Repeat this with all the crepes.  When the last crepe has been folded, pour in the liqueur.  Quickly take a match and light the mixture.  Let the fire burn for ten seconds or so to burn off the alcohol, while swirling the pan.

To serve, take two crepes on each plate.  Add a large scoop of vanilla ice cream and pour some of the orange sauce over the crepes and ice cream.  It is also lovely to garnish this with some sliced oranges.

Eat while hot!

New York Style Bagels

Bagels differ from bread in three ways.  First, they are flavored with malt.  Many recipes use malt extract or syrup.  I had trouble finding this in the store, and my husband Peter suggested that I use a porter beer which is heavily malt flavored instead. The worked very well and was much easier to find than the extract.   A true bagel is boiled for a couple of minutes in water before it is baked.  This step gives the bagel its chewy texture.  The water interacts with the outside of the dough to form a crust.  This crust prevents the dough from rising too much in the oven, giving a denser bread.  The longer that the dough is boiled, the chewier the bagel is. Finally, bagel dough is a much stiffer dough than normal bread, meaning it has much less water.  This is partly what gives the bagel its dense crumb and texture, and also allows it to stand up to the water bath.


While making bagels is quite straightforward, I do not recommend it if you have never baked bread before.  The reason for this is because the dough is so stiff that it is much harder to knead than a normal bread dough and thus there is a larger probability of going wrong.  The first time I made bagels, I made three batches before I had any success!  The first batch I used an old sack of bread flour that had been sitting in my cupboard for three years.  As I was kneading it, the dough was extremely crumbly and did not show any signs of elasticity.  I looked up whether flour could be too old, and it turns out the protein and gluten content does deteriorate with age.  So, I dumped that batch and started again.  This time the dough felt better immediately, but I was so concerned with having a dry enough dough that I didn’t put enough water in it.  After kneading for over half an hour and even enlisting my husband’s hands for a further 10 minutes, the dough still did not want to be smooth.  I went ahead and finished the bread but while the bagels were baking, I read all the recipes I could find and realized that my dough had simply been too dry.  While the bagels came out edible, they were misshapen and ugly. Of course, I had invited some friends over to try my bagels, and they gamely complimented my efforts but it didn’t really feel like a success!  Later that afternoon, I decided to try one last time, making sure the dough was not too dry, and it finally worked. For this reason, I can suggest that if you do not make bread very often, buy more yeast than you need.  If the first batch doesn’t work, you can always throw it away and begin again.  While I dislike waste, the ingredients here are quite inexpensive, so you can afford to experiment.  Do not be put off by the length of the recipe.  It is not that difficult or time consuming, but I have tried to give a lot of detail so that you won’t have to do it three times before getting a good bagel!


12 bagels

For bagel dough:
50 grams (1.5 ounces) fresh yeast cake
3 dl (1 1/4 cups)water
3 dl (1 1/4 cups) porter style beer
3 tablespoons honey, syrup, or brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
10 to 13 dl (4 to 6 cups) strong bread flour

For boiling the bagels:
The rest of the bottle of porter
½ cup brown sugar

Optional, topping for bagels
Sesame seeds, caraway seeds, flake sea salt, or poppy seeds

In a bowl or large measuring cup, pour in the warm water.  The water should feel slightly warm to the touch (around 100F, if you measure with a thermometer).  The yeast is already active and does not need to be woken up. Better to have the water slightly too cold than too hot because water over 130F will kill the yeast.  Crumble the yeast cake into the water and stir until it is fully dissolved.  Then add in your choice of sweetening agent and the beer and stir.

In a large bowl, pour 10 dl (4 cups) of flour and add the salt and stir.  Make a hole in the center and pour in the yeast mixture.  Stir with a spoon until the flour is more or less incorporated and then start kneading the mixture in the bowl with your hand.  You should have a stiff dough, much stiffer than a normal bread dough, but all the flour should be incorporated and the dough should be in one mass.  If the dough is crumbly and does not seem to want to form a ball, then add a bit more water.  If the dough is sticky, then gradually sprinkle in more flour.   You should end up with a ball of dough that is a bit rough and lumpy but that sticks together.  Although you want a dry stiff dough, it is better to err on the wet side if you are unsure.  The worst that will happen is that you have a softer, more bread like bagel, while if it is too dry, the dough will not come together smoothly and you will have lumpy bagels.  It is also easier to add more flour to make the dough drier during the kneading process than to wet a dry dough later.  Put a towel over the bowl and let the dough stand for 10 minutes.  This will allow the gluten in the flour to relax slightly, making it easier to knead.

Lightly dust a working surface with flour and start kneading the dough.  After about 2 to 3 minutes, it should start becoming smooth.  The dough should not be at all sticky.  If it is sticky, dust a bit more flour on it and continue to knead.  Repeat until the dough no longer feels sticky. Because the dough is dryer than normal and because you are using bread flour with a higher gluten content, it will take longer to knead.  If you should feel that your dough is too dry, wet your hands and knead again until all the water is incorporated.  You can repeat this several times until you reach a consistency that feels better. Continue kneading for a further 15 to 20 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic and forms a neat ball.

If you have a mixer with dough attachments or a bread-maker, you can let the machine do this work.  In fact, many recipes I have read recommend using a machine, presumably because the machine can do a better job with the stiff dough and you may find that a machine can incorporate a bit more flour than you can do by hand.  Do keep an eye on it, though, to make sure the machine does not overheat due to the stiffness of the dough!
Put the dough in a clean bowl, cover with a dishcloth, and set in a warm spot.  Let rise for 1 hour or more, until the dough has doubled.

Punch the dough to get the air bubbles out and turn it out and knead for a minute.  The dough should be smooth and elastic.  At this point you can put the dough back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator overnight or up to two days.  The dough will slowly rise in the refrigerator, and this slow rise will improve the flavor and texture of the bread.  If you have room in your refrigerator, you can also form the bagels now and let them rise on the trays overnight.  Then, in the morning, you can simply dash out, remove the trays and let them warm up while you go back to bed for another hour. However, if you are in a hurry, you can skip the slow rise in the refrigerator and go straight to forming the bagels and baking them after they have risen.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut into 12 even pieces.  You can form each bagel in one of two methods.  (1)Roll each piece into a smooth ball and then stick your thumb into the center and make a hole in each piece.  Roll the dough around, stretching it evenly to make a hole about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter.  (2) Roll out the dough into a snake.  Wind it into a circle and press the two ends together very hard.  Then roll the area which you have pressed to even it out.  It is said that professional bagel makers use this method, but you can choose whichever suits you best.

Put each bagel on a parchment covered baking sheet and cover with a towel.  If the dough is cold from the refrigerator, let them sit out on the counter to come to room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes.  They should rise a bit during this time.  If you skipped the second rising in the refrigerator, let the bagels rise a second time, about 20 to 30 minutes.  If you put them in the refrigerator already shaped, then they only need to come to room temperature, they will already be risen.

When you are ready to bake the bagels, preheat the oven to 400F (200C). Bring a pot of water, about 4 inches deep to a boil.  The pot should be big enough to fit 3 to 4 bagels.  Pour in the rest of the beer and ½ cup of sugar.  This will increase the malty flavor and the sugar will make a nice crust on the bagels.  The water should not be at a rolling boil, but at a simmer.  With a slotted spoon, lay each bagel into the water, in batches of 3 to 4, whatever fits comfortably in your pot.  If you have refrigerated the dough, you need to make sure it has come to room temperature.  If the bagel does not rise to the surface of the boiling water and float, then the bagel is still too cold.  Wait for another 15 to 20 minutes and then try again. 

Let the bagel simmer for about a minute and then flip them over and simmer for a further minute on the other side.  The bagels will puff out a bit in the water. Have ready a plate where you have sprinkled the topping of your choice.  Take each bagel from the boiling water and lay on the plate.  The water from boiling will help the topping stick to the bagel.  Remove the bagel and put on the baking sheet, topping side up.  You can smooth the topping with a finger if it is not even.  Repeat until your baking sheet is full.  You should probably be able to fit 6 to 8 bagels on one baking sheet. 

Bake the bagels for 15 to 25 minutes until they are golden brown.  Serve warm, split with butter or cream cheese or other topping of your choice.  Bagels freeze very well.  Simply let them thaw out and toast.