The basic premise of William Alexander’s recent book, 52 Loaves, like his first title The $64 Tomato, is that the author becomes so obsessed with a particular project, in this case creating (and growing wheat for) the perfect loaf of country bread, that he devotes a year (hence the title) and a great deal of energy and money, in the pursuit of his goal.

I’ll leave aside the obvious shades of mid-life crisis that dominate the book’s context, and I’ll ignore the far-too-frequent-for-comfort discussions of Alexander’s marital relations that I feel like he included to appear less of a nerd than a bread-obsessed IT director might otherwise, and focus instead on the fact that, as with many quests, his journey ultimately became more important than his goal. Alexander’s aim may have been to master the art of baking au levain country loaves at home, but in the course of his year-long peregrinations across North America, and to Morocco and France, and wittily transcending his middle-aged, obsessive-compulsive suburban dad identity, he finds much more than a faultless bread recipe, becoming a fount of fascinating knowledge and experience about life and human history.

Many of us, I’m sure, secretly dream of jacking in our workaday lives in the urban rat-race and retiring to a country town to bake delicious breads (or insert artisan career of choice), but Alexander disabuses the reader of this romantic notion through his own strenuous baking experiences as a boulanger for forty monks at the Norman abbey of St. Wandrille. Certainly, hobbyist bread bakers can learn a great deal from the author’s efforts, and benefit from the distilled information he provides in the form of recipes in the appendices, but for me, the most interesting aspect of 52 Loaves is that it raised a thorny issue Michael Steinberger also makes in his recent book Au Revoir to All That, that I was reading concurrently, namely that in France, the country many of us believe to be ground-zero for all that is good in bread baking (not to mention gastronomy in general), there is hardly a decent loaf to be found.

Projecting his theory that a 1,300 year old abbey must be the place to find (and make) artisan country breads, Alexander finds, to his dismay, that not only do none of the monks know how to bake but that even obtaining the correct kind of flour and yeast is nigh-on impossible. Echoing a  situation Steinberger also laments, Alexander questions how things got this way as he finds himself smuggling pots of his wild yeast starter into France when traditionally all the knowledge and great products have been coming the other way.

Of course, recently the French have become a convenient punchline in America for all manner of jokes about their military prowess, supposed lack of backbone and preference for industrial action over actual hard work, and one might be forgiven for thinking Steinberger is cashing in on that incipient anti-Gallic sentiment to herald the demise of the only areas in which the French have typically led the Anglo-Saxon world: food, wine, and artisanal production thereof. In fact, Steinberger is a self-declared Francophile whose enviably thorough research at many of the finest tables, markets, farms and vineyards in France must have caused him terrible distress as he found that a disastrous combination of a poor economy, confounding government regulations and a saddening disregard for traditional French food culture have led to a serious decline in gastronomic excellence.

Alexander notes the irony of  an American computer guy teaching French monks how to bake bread, and Steinberger points to the French Culinary Institute’s 2006 Gala hosted by a bevy of Spanish chefs and not a single Frenchman as evidence of the “end of France”, but it is, all the same, hard to believe that an entire nation’s cultural identity is vanishing to such an extent that hobbyist Americans and a little competition from a resurgent southern neighbor have supplanted centuries of tradition. Indeed, one of the underlying biases of both books is that we in America (and Britain), who have recently emerged from a centuries-long gastronomic Dark Age and have finally embraced the notion that food coming from small, craft producers is better in myriad ways than that of the industrial conglomerate (something we owe in no small measure to our Gallic cousins), are somehow now able to preach this message back to the French and that the joke is on them.

Certainly, Steinberger’s book is persuasive and raises legitimate concerns about how government regulation of cheese making is precipitating the extinction of some of France’s most famous lait cru, or raw milk, cheeses, but I can’t help averring that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. While USDA regulations still rule out the importing of French raw milk cheeses, not to mention actively discouraging domestic production thereof, there is comparatively little hope of their persistence here or there. Moreover, if it is the attraction of McDonald’s and Wonderbread that is behind the decline in traditional French bistrots and artisanal country loaf baking, then who is to blame – the country who popularized both and, now, finding itself now saturated and obese  as a result, is looking to export them to maintain share prices, or lower middle-class French families struggling to make ends meet in a global economic downturn?

If there is a message to be taken combined from both titles it is perhaps an obvious one, that wherever one finds oneself (to a greater or lesser degree depending on location), and whether it be haute cuisine, organic wheat flour or artisanal raw milk cheese, fine food remains a bourgeois passion really only available to those whose considerable purchasing power offers the option to choose. Evidently, a world where delicious, nutritious, locally-grown and organic foods are available to all is the ideal and a goal worth striving for, but until, through government intervention or other means, and especially problematic in a persistently bad economy, these food stuffs are price competitive with the products of industrial agro-business, it is too early to start congratulating ourselves for having seen the light and pointing out the fault in others in the grip of lower-grade processed foods.

Being the innate pessimist that I am, watching a small boat being knocked around like a dodgem car on the rollicking, blue-grey seas at the normally placid Jersey Shore this past weekend put me in mind of the Costa de Muerte, the coast of death, on Spain’s north-west coast, where Galician fisherman have taken their lives in their hands for generations. [In a quirk of editorial fate, I may, unwittingly, have taken inspiration for this flight of fancy from the cover (then unopened) of this month's Bon Appetit, but as you will see, if you persevere, there is a mite more detail below than Barbara Fairchild typically provides.]

The ocean’s bounty has never been translated into material riches in that part of Spain, and even in modern times, in spite of renewed interest centered around its albariño and mencia wines, artisanal cheeses, and gooseneck barnacles, it remains comparatively impoverished. Consequently, Gallegos have, for generations, cast their fortunes in the wind and sought better lives for themselves in other parts of Spain and the New World, including Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina, and Cuba.

Interestingly, and this is mostly unrelated, during researching this post, I learned that Fidel Castro’s father was one such Galician emigrant. His mother was also of Galician descent. In fact, Castro is a common Galician family name that is derived from the circular stone-built houses or “castles” of the Castreña — the Celtic Bronze Age culture that left a number of characteristic walled villages across the region. [Ironically, of course, Galician heritage is perhaps the only thing that the communist Fidel shared with his fascist counterpart Francisco Franco, but it was enough for the former to take up an invitation from the-then leader of Spain to visit their shared "home" region in the 1960s.]

The late 19th century marked the beginning of mass Galician emigration to the New World, and an unknown, but significant, number of Gallegos emigrated to Argentina and Uruguay during this period. Today, the two New World cities with the greatest number of people of Galician descent are those countries’ respective capitals, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, so much so, that it is not uncommon for Porteños to refer to all Spaniards as “Gallegos”.

Regular visitors to this blog will, perhaps, recall last April’s post about Argentine pizza which ventured a sociological theory on the impact Italian immigrants have had on the culture and food of their adopted country. It is just possible that I overstated things a little. You see, beyond its magnificent meats, Argentinian cuisine’s next most famous item is not, as I said, its pizza or pasta, but its empanadas. To explain this, I had originally intended to embark on a lengthy discussion of how Galician immigrants were behind the development of the iconic Argentine empanada. Sadly, I could find no evidence whatsoever to support this hypothesis, especially since Argentine empanadas resemble more closely the typical Spanish empanadilla than the much larger Galician empanada, and were likely to have been popular in Argentina long before Gallegos arrived en masse. Instead, a brief description of how we came across Galician empanadas in a veritable sea of Argentine-style pies during our stay in Buenos Aires last year will have to suffice. Sorry about that.

We snacked almost constantly on empanadas with a variety of fillings throughout our ten days in Buenos Aires, and began taking their quality and ubiquity mostly for granted. It was only later on in our visit when we came across Pizzeria la Americana (aka La Reina de las Empanadas), an established bakery and cafe a block from the Palacio del Congreso de Argentina, that we realized not all empanadas are created equal. In this giant place that takes up most of a city block, a bevvy of savory pastries, large and small, sat glowing warmly under spotlights behind glass screens. These piles of regular small empanadas beckoned, crustily, at us, and we would have reverted to habit and ordered a slew of them had we not spied some giant pies on individual cake stands next to them. We hadn’t seen anything like these before — two or more inches thick, baked to a shiny golden patina and filled with, among other things, greens, boiled eggs and ham — yet they were also described as empanadas. What were they?

Even more confusingly, one of the large ones was labelled “pascualina”, a moniker for pies we had come across only once before, and then in Genoa, to describe that city’s special Easter variation of the spinach/chard and ricotta torta de bietole. Could these pies be variations on that? We weren’t sure, and couldn’t summon enough of our tourist Spanish to ask what might turn into something of a lengthy and garbled question about nomenclature, semantics and gastronomic anthrolopology.

Argentina’s ethnic mix has contributed to a unique South American melding of Iberian and Italic culture and cuisine, in which a pizzeria could quite legitimately describe itself as the queen of the empanada, while simultaneously serving Genoese-influenced Galician specialties without breaking stride or encouraging skepticism from potential customers. We were momentarily confused by it all, but decided there was nothing to do but roll with it, and so ordered a couple of giant slices of the empanada Gallega de pollo, which turned out to be a delicious, if over-generous, appetizer for our subsequent lunch at one of the city’s oldest Italian restaurants.

Neither of us had ever had a pie quite like this before. It didn’t really resemble the free-form tuna and sardine empanadas I’d tried in Santiago de Compostela and Vigo years ago, nor was it like an American-style pot pie we’re so familiar with, brimming with sauce and chunky vegetables. With a bready, pizza-like crust, top and bottom, and baked in a dish about the same dimensions as a deep-pan pizza, the filling was a moist and peppery combination of chicken, sauted greens, onions and red pepper. It was absolutely delicious and we have both been raving about it ever since, but everytime we’ve tried to make any of the many variations on Galician empanadas, we’ve failed to produce anything similar, nor have any recipes for Argentine empanadas worked out the right way.

In truth, the, what I’m going to call, Argentine-style empanada Gallega that we did make, wasn’t quite as good as the one we ate in Buenos Aires. The dough was too firm, not bready enough, and I should have tried using a modified pizza dough instead, but the filling more than made up for its shortcomings. In place of chicken, we slow-roasted half a Long Island duck that we had left over in the freezer from the hand-rolled Tuscan pasta with duck ragu and mixed it with sauted kale, green pepper, garlic, smoked paprika (pimenton) and lots of onions.

Experimentation on this front will continue because I could usefully spend some more time beautifying my rather scruffy attempt at a decoration, but also because one empanada fed the both of us for dinner that night and for lunch three subsequent days, and it just got better with each passing meal. Feel free to mess around with the dough recipe to your heart’s content, just as we will when we make this again, and, of course, the filling is entirely up to you too. Duck is kind of a luxury, and chicken, tuna, sardines, boiled eggs, a variety of vegetables, or plain old ground beef, would be absolutely fine. You should also feel free, should you feel geeky enough, to develop your own specious theories about the development of various global cuisines. They probably won’t be any less likely than mine.

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We’re going to make this one short and sweet — the Phillies, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies, just couldn’t do it this year.  What was even worse was that they played the Yankees and I live in New York City in a new apartment building surrounded by Yankees fans.   I just couldn’t face to finish watching the final game as the Phillies handed their World Championship title to the team with not only the richest ball players (who have won the World Series 26 times before) but also to a team filled with wanna-be celebrities (ahem, A-Rod – here doing what he does best, looking in a mirror and kissing himself and, ahem, Jeter) and actual celebrity “fans” and girlfriends (if I had to see stupid Kate Hudson, Jay Z or Rudy Giuliani one more freaking time…).

Even though I slept with ear plugs in the night the Yankees won, despite my disappointment, I fell into a deep slumber with a belly full of smoky, spicy Chipotle Wings. A few weeks ago, Challenge Butter convinced us to take on some samples of their unsalted butter and create an appetizer using their product along with some Spice Island and OXO products that they so generously gave us.  It was a way for them to not only get the word out on their amazing product (unfortunately, it’s only available to buy in the Western part of the US) but also on a great sweepstakes they are running until December 31st, 2009 to win a 7-day trip to Montana.

So with sports on the brain and the cooler weather coming in, we dusted the wings with some of the Spice Island spices and baked them Alton Brown-style till they crisped up, then tossed them in a blend of my obsession, La Morena Chipotle Sauce, some Tabasco chipotle-flavored hot sauce and some melted Challenge Butter. Dipped in some fennel-seed spiked Ranch dressing and the worries of my team losing the big game began to fade away – even if it was only temporary.

Perhaps the day that both our teams (Manchester United & Philadelphia Eagles) won unlikely decisive victories in the realm of competitive sports, is the best day to dwell on the recent personal glory of our seafood soufflés staying up. However – even if (quite sensibly) you don’t give a rat’s ass about sports – anyone who has tried making them before knows the all-too-brief satisfaction of the fully puffed soufflé, and, though, we’ve experienced the saddening deflation of failure, we now also know the pride and joy that is a fully erect soufflé.

And, lest you think that we traded our heroes for ghosts, this was none other than a snorting, full-on multi-fish and cheese souffle that not only satisfied our desire for classic French cookery, but provided much-needed stomach-lining on a day that required some serious daytime drinking.

Even if you’re not planning on a full day of sports-related drinking, these souffles are a fantastically light, yet rich, first course, or a great light main with bread and an arugula side-salad, not to sound all non-contact-sports metrosexual on you.

We’d like to thank Taste With the Eyes whose comté soufflé gave us inspiration for this dish. 

Mixed Fish & Gruyere Soufflé with Parsley Sauce (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup (6oz) milk
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (Emmentaler or Comté would also work well)
• 1 cup assorted cooked shellfish (shrimp, scallops, mussels, + white fish, if you like)
• 1 bunch flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 good pinch salt

Recipe

• Cook off your chosen seafood and allow to cool. Drain of as much cooking fat as possible.
• In a high-sided saucepan make a bechamel sauce with butter, flour and milk.
• Remove pan from heat and beat in egg yolks, one at time.
• Stir in grated cheese until fully combined, then stir in fish. Allow to cool.
• In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until until soft peaks are achieved.
• Gently fold in 1/3 egg whites into bechamel and continue adding beaten egg whites until completely combined.
• Pour mixture into buttered soufflé dishes until 3/4 full.
• Cook immediately for 20 minutes at 400F (210C), then increase to 450F (230C) for 8-10 minutes or until fully-risen and browned on top.
• Add parsley, water, oil and salt to blender. Blitz until consistency of vinaigrette. Pour into squeezy bottle and squirt gaily over your fish soufflé.

It’s always fun to be with my British husband and celebrate the 4th of July. Some of his favorite questions he been asked many times since moving to America to be with moi is, “So, Jonny, what’s Thanksgiving like in England!?” or “How do you guys celebrate the 4th of July in England!?”. Such silly questions – some of us need to be reminded of our history sometimes! But every year around this time my family loves to wave flags (nobody waves a flag better than an upstanding American citizen!), laugh and say “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” in my poor British husbands face. It’s a real sweet, bonding moment and Jonny hasn’t gone postal on our a$$es yet!

Just to remind all of you US-history-challenged readers, Americans celebrate the 4th of July each year commemorating the final f-you to the British in declaring our independence from them. So, celebrate the day with a cook out, some bunting, fireworks, sparklers, a Brit to make fun of and this delightfully delicious Nectarine Tart. The reason why this is so delicious and weirdly light is because the filling isn’t made with custard, it’s actually made with simple whipped cream mixed with Cointreau and topped with poached nectarines. Maybe you can swap the nectarines out for some raspberries, cherries or strawberries and really make this a 4th of July spectacular! Super easy and very, very, very tasty, we cheated and used some frozen pastry (gasp!!! Y’all know i’m a cruddy baker!), but feel free to use your favorite pastry recipe. We took this straight from a wonderful book, “When French Women Cook: A Gastronomic Memoir” by, Madeline Kamman. HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY – HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

TARTE AUX BRUGNONS (NECTARINE TART)

Ingredients:

• Your favorite pastry recipe or thawed ready-made pastry
• 8 nectarines
• handfull of berries (we used blackberries)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. confectioners sugar
• 4 tbsp. Cointreau, triple sec or Kirsch

What to do:

1. Roll our your pastry to fit a 9-inch pan. Blind bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil and immerse nectarines in for 1 to 2 minutes, allowing you to peel the skin off more easily. Peel and cut in quarters to remove the stone then slice into thin pieces.
3. Make a syrup with 1/2 a cup of water and the sugar and poach the nectarine pieces all together. Allow to cool.
4. Whip the cream gradually adding the sugar and 1 tablespoon of the liquor at a time. When the cream is stiff, fill the pastry shell with it.
5. Top with cooled nectarine syrup and then the blackberries. ENJOY!

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• AUTHENTIC CARNE ASADA TACOS
• CRANBERRY FLAPJACKS
• BLOOD ORANGE MARGARITAS
• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)
• LEBANESE-SPICED LAMB OVER CRISPY PITA WITH CHICKPEAS, PINENUTS, POMEGRANATE SEEDS SMOTHERED IN GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE
• GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE

In Florence, and other parts of Tuscany, eggs florentine are not typically eaten at breakfast time, the Tuscans preferring the simplicity of coffee and a pastry or perhaps a grilled slice of saltless Tuscan bread, rubbed with garlic and olive oil. However, the basic notion of eggs and spinach is authentically Tuscan, and instead of poached eggs over wilted spinach, they are often baked together in a creamy, nutmeggy sauce and eaten as a side dish to a grilled or roasted meat.

And, with a lot of things we do on our blog, we feel the authentic version is better than the knock-offs and happily spinach is in season right now, so it’s both authentic and seasonal.

Initially, I was skeptical that this dish would be any good because spinach dishes are usually not that flavorful – with the spinach not offering much in the way of an identifiable taste. Not in this case though, where the spinach actually provides all the flavor and, surprisingly, a lot of almost crunchy texture, and the cream, eggs and butter provide the richness.

This, as an accompaniment to a great, rare bistecca alla fiorentina, would make for a delicious and decadent dinner, not dissimilar to the traditional American steakhouse classic of steak with a side of creamed spinach, but the addition of the eggs to this dish really puts it over the edge. You really can’t go wrong.

Baked Spinach with Eggs

Ingredients

1lb (500g) spinach, washed, but with stems on
1/2 cup heavy cream
3-4 medium eggs
1tbsp unsalted butter1tbsp grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese1tsp freshly grated nutmegsalt and black pepper to taste

Recipe

Pre-heat your oven to 350F / 175C.In a large saute pan, wilt the spinach gently in the butter. Three to four minutes is all it should really take.Then strain-off the spinach juices and reserve. Place spinach to a buttered oven-proof baking dish and distribute evenly.Add spinach juices and half the cream back in your pan and over low heat allow to reduce a little – until the cream is a pale green and starting to thicken. Then add nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.Pour the rest of the cream over the spinach and make indentations in the spinach for your eggs. Crack eggs into indentations, then pour over the cream and spinach juice mixture before sprinkling the whole thing with parmesan cheese and some extra black pepper.Bake for 15-20 minutes or until bubbling and eggs are firm. Allow to come to room temperature before serving with your favorite cut of steak.

Thanks to Maxine Clark, The Flavors of Tuscany: Recipes from the Heart of Italy, from which this recipe was adapted.

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)
• TORTILLA ESPANOLA (Spanish Potato Omelet)
• PASTA (BUCATINI) WITH PISTACHIO SAUCE
• WHOLE FRIED SNAPPER WITH GARLIC AND PARSLEY SAUCE
• FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP
• ROASTED PORK SHOULDER (Pernil) – The Quicker Version

In my mind though, any sweet recipe that goes up on this blog – no matter how easy – represents a victory since both my wife and I are poor bakers, so I’m posting this recipe for cranberry flapjacks anyway and to hell with the seasons!

Flapjacks remind me of my late mother as they were an old favorite of hers that she often made for when we came home from college or weekends, and we’d sit with her and catch up over flapjacks and a cup of tea. These turned out really well (they are dead easy to make) and I’m sure my mum would be proud of me.

UPDATE BY THE AMERICAN:  Just like I scratched my head in curious wonder when I first noticed that the English term for flapjack was very different from what I knew of flapjack,  so were many of our readers.  So, I realized we need to add a bit of history here.  According to research, in the US, the term flapjack dates back to the early 1600’s.  This is the second oldest term to describe what we also know as pancakes here in the US (which is the earliest term, coined around the 14th century).  We also have the good ‘ole American term johnnycake (Soprano’s fans?  Remember that hot scene between a sweaty, hairy fat Vito and his sweet Johnnycake near the motorcycle? Sexy!) or hoecake (love this one).  In the UK, a flapjack is a tray bake made of oats, fat and sugar and often syrup or honey.  They range from being soft and moist to dry and crisp (like this recipe) and are eaten as an alternative to a biscuit (cookie).  Also, a pancake in the UK is kind of different from our pancakes here (they are much thinner and lighter).  Check out our post on Pancake Day for some delicious UK pancake recipes.  To the English, a flapjack and a pancake are two completely different things.  To Americans, they are interchangeable.

Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the bottom line:  The word flap- meaning a tossed mixture and jack, an uncertain word suggesting a variety, imply any ingredients could be called a flapjack.  To me, this explains why the word flapjack can basically be anything that is both tossed and with a variety of ingredients.  Salad = Flapjacks?  I’m still confused.

Cranberry (Craisin) Flapjacks

Ingredients

• 3½ oz (100g) butter, plus a bit extra to grease your brownie pan
• 2½ oz (75g) light brown sugar (muscovado)
• 3 good tbsp runny honey
• 12oz (350g) porridge (Quaker) oats
• pinch of salt
• 3½ oz (100g) dried cranberries (craisins)
• 1 banana, mashed (optional)

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 350F (180C) and lightly butter a 10 x 10 or 10 x 12 inch brownie pan
• Melt butter gently in a saucepan and mix in sugar and honey.
• Then add oats and salt. Stir well.
• Add cranberries (and banana) and stir well again.
• Turn mixture into brownie pan and press down so surface is smooth and mixture is evenly spread.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until oats are golden brown and crispy.
• Allow to cool for 10 minutes, but cut into squares while still warm.
• Store in an airtight jar or tin. They keep very nicely and continue to develop their chewiness for a while.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• BROILED MISO-GLAZED SALMON WITH SOBA NOODLES
• SANDWICH DE MERGUEZ (BAGUETTE FILLED WITH MERGUEZ SAUSAGE, FRENCH FRIES AND FRIED LEEKS)
• CREAMY LEMON PASTA
• TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE (Sausages Nested in Batter)
• ENSALADA DE CABRALES (Thin Sliced Apple and Cabrales Cheese Salad w/ Vinaigrette)
• AVGOLEMONO SOUP (Greek Lemon-Egg Chicken Soup w/ Orzo)

Indeed, to my mind, (and to disagree with Mr. Steingarten, for once) there is one distinct advantage to oven-roasting vs. spit-roasting, namely, drippings, and drippings, like the crumbles in the corner of a bag of chips (crisps), are where the flavor is at. These drippings, you see, can be made into one of the most sublime of all cooking by-products, the gravy.

So, after washing and patting dry my bird, I stuffed its cavity with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, thyme, and lemon, before giving it a good rub all over with olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of salt. I then placed said bird in a dutch oven (le creuset) and leaving the lid off, put it in a 420F oven for forty minutes. After forty minutes, and with the bird looking perfectly golden and crispy, I turned the heat down to more placid 350F and let it roast for another hour before removing it and letting it rest a while out of the oven.

Before carving it, I removed the bird from the pot and took out the stuffing from the cavity, then drained all the juices out of the cavity into the pot where they mixed with roasting juices. Adding the cavity stuffing to the juices, along with about a pint of tap water, I turned up the heat and scraped the burnt bits off the bottom of the pan. I let the liquid reduce by about a third, stirring occasionally and crushing some of the vegetables a bit with my wooden spoon.

Nicely brown and beautifully redolent of chicken, thyme, lemon and the sweetness of roasted carrots, I strained the gravy and then pushed the solids through a sieve to add some body and flavor back in to it. Seasoning only slightly with salt and fresh pepper, I was proud to have made an absolutely fantastic, honest-to-goodness chicken gravy without recourse to stock, bouillon cubes or thickeners like corn starch. It was a moment in which I realized that just by following my instincts I had recreated the kind of gravy you’d commonly find at a good English restaurant or pub, or indeed, a good country French restaurant.

It was really quite an ordinary dinner – roast chicken, dauphinoise potatoes and a warm asparagus salad with fennel and celery tops, but with this gravy it became extraordinary — exactly the kind of restorative elixir that my body needed. “They” say that chicken soup contains something that makes you better when you’re sick, and I am sure that this chicken gravy had some of that goodness in it too. It was freshly made, flavorful and, well, chicken-y in a way that only chicken can really taste like chicken, and it made me feel wholesome without resorting to wheat germ, lentils and colonic irrigation.

Another interesting by-product of this dinner was a rather toothsome recipe for a potato and fennel gratin that I’m also inordinately proud of, perhaps because I didn’t work from a recipe, perhaps because I’m an asshole. Anyway, here’s how to do it:

Potato & Fennel Gratin
Ingredients

• 2 large or 3 medium waxy potatoes (yukon gold are best here) peeled, but left whole
• 1 large fennel bulb with tops trimmed and reserved for fennel salad
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup milk
• 2-3oz low moisture mozzarella, sliced thinly
• salt & pepper to taste

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Using a mandolin on the middle thickness setting, slice your potatoes and fennel.
• Lay out potatoes overlapping one another by about 3/4 slice (see photo below) in a layer in a baking dish.
• Then do the same thing with your fennel slices. This second layer will probably not be as neat as the first one, but that doesn’t really matter.
• Pour the milk over the vegetables but make sure milk does not cover them. Depending on the size of your dish, you may need a bit more or a bit less milk, but it should only come up to the bottom of the upper-most layer of vegetables.
• Season with salt and pepper.

• Cover dish with foil and place in oven for about half an hour.
• After this time, remove from oven and lay your mozzarella slices on top. Do not add too much cheese – be a little sparing.
• Return to oven and allow to bake for another twenty minutes or so, until cheese begins to puff and brown.
• Remove and allow to cool a bit before serving (cutting is easier when vegetables and cheese have firmed up a little).
• Serve with roast chicken on a Sunday night and calm the weekly apprehension at your impending return to work.

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• BRAISED PORK CHOPS WITH LIME AND OLIVES
• ENSALADA DE CABRALES (Thin Sliced Apple and Cabrales Cheese Salad w/ Vinaigrette)
• AUTHENTIC THIN-CRUST PIZZA
• BLACK, RED OR PINTO BEANS WITH CHORIZO AND CUMIN
• VEAL KIDNEYS WITH MUSHROOMS AND COGNAC
• CREAMY LEMON PASTA
• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)

So, maybe I’m trying to blame everyone and everything else for this crappy attempt at cooking. Ok, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m going to put a picture of my baking soda-less ‘cake’ here:

Delicious, right? Are you still there? Do you still love us? Could you possible forgive me for not knowing how to cook sweets? PLLLLEEEAAAASSSEEE, I’m on my knees beggin’.

Well, the next day I dusted myself off, wiped my tears and snot away and threw that flour-stained apron on for one last attempt. This time I’ll used the baking soda!! I also changed recipes. Pixie at You Say Tomato had a sweet idea to bake better and more easily – check off the ingredients you’ve used and the steps you’ve finished. Brilliant!! So, I did it. Here’s the result.

I used some Nigella Lawson icing recipe but I have to tell you that two days after I made the cake, alot of the icing actually was absorbed by the cake instead of staying on the cake. Maybe this is a normal thing and most people finish cakes in 2 days. Hey, there’s only two of us here! I was also able to use a bit more of the blood oranges from this post to color the icing a bit pink.

Anyways, I’m sure I haven’t inspired you to bake with this post, but I had to share the story of a “Girl Baker Gone Wild”. I may leave the baking to the husband from now on.

STRAWBERRY BUNDT CAKE WITH ROYAL ICING

Ingredients for Cake:

• 3 cups cake flour (or substitute 3 1/2 cups of regular flour with 1/2 cup corn starch to make 4 cups of the cake flour “substitute” – remember to only use 3 cups of it, though!)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (this is important, remember!!)
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 large whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup unsalted butter (divided)
• 10-15 fresh strawberries, sliced and mashed with back of a fork

What to do for cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan or tube pan. Tap out any excess flour.
2. Sift the cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of a standing electric mixer.
3. In a medium bowl, using a fork, beat together the sour cream, milk, whole eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla until very well blended and smooth. Add the butter and half the egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Beat at low speed just until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to high and beat for 1 minute; do not overmix.
4. Add the remaining egg mixture and beat at medium-high speed until the batter is fluffy and smooth, about 1 minute longer.
5. Throw in the sliced/mashed strawberries along with any juice that was extracted and fold into the batter.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Rap the pan on the counter several times to remove air bubbles. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until it is well browned, pulls away from the pan sides, and a toothpick inserted in the thickest part comes out clean.
7. Run a thin knife around the pan edges to loosen the cake if necessary, then invert onto a serving plate. Allow to cool before adding icing.

Ingredients for Icing:

• 2 large egg whites (or substitute powdered egg whites)
• 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice plus 1/2 teaspoon blood orange juice (Feel free to just use 1 whole teaspoon of lemon juice if you don’t have any blood orange juice)

What to do for icing:

1. Combine the egg whites and confectioners’ sugar in a medium-size mixing bowl and whip with an electric mixer on medium speed until opaque and shiny, about 5 minutes.
2. Whisk in the lemon juice/blood orange mixture, this will thin out the icing. Beat for another couple of minutes until you reach the right spreading consistency for the cake. Should be stiff but able to run a bit down the sides of the cake.

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It was as if it was divine intervention. We finally found morcilla (see picture of sausages below – it’s the black one) in a specialty store up the block but we weren’t prepared to make a fabada or cocido – two other Spanish dishes which call for morcilla. I picked up one of my favorite Spanish cookbooks, The Food & Wine of Spain by Penelope Casas and looked up morcilla in it’s index. One recipe caught my eye, so I turned to the page and everything in the world just seemed be right. The recipe was for a traditional Spanish Easter bread called hornazo – basically a sausage-stuffed country bread. Whoa, sausage and bread all in one? Here in New York City there’s sausage rolls similar to this one from Proud Italian Cook. There’s also stromboli’s and calzone’s that can be stuffed with sausage, but they will also include sauce and/or cheese and maybe some extra ingredients.

What really drew me to this recipe, besides the use of my beloved morcilla, was the timing. Easter’s almost here and as you can tell we’re mildly obsessed with Spain… this recipe just seemed special. I really love authentic food traditions because, in America, we’re losing them every year. This month, Saveur magazine had a fascinating article about the southern Italian bread called pane di San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph’s bread) eaten in Sicily on the Feast of Saint Joseph on March 19th. The article was particularly interesting to me because as an Italian-American, I’ve always been intrigued by my Italian background and I always wished my grandmother offered up more stories growing up. Like some other first-generation Americans, my grandmother “conveniently” forgot certain parts of her history as she got older. It was as if the past was the past and they needed to look ahead. Anyways, according to the Saveur article, Saint Joseph’s bread was very popular in Italian communities in the US until recently, when most of the first-generation Italian-Americans died off. Many southern Italians living in America do not make this bread anymore – the tradition is dying off with the generation that used to make it. It just made me think about how sadit is that we all came from immigrants from various countries and it’s important to hold on to some of the traditions of the past. Talk to your grandparents. Ask them to share stories. Write things down. My grandmother is not around anymore, but my mother shares things with me – like my grandmom’s famous (well, famous in our family at least!) sausage and peppers sandwiches.

But, back to Easter and bread made around the world during this time. Easter bread is different in depending on the country. The Russians have kulich, the Ukranians have paska, the Greeks have tsoureki, the English have hot cross buns. The Spanish have hornazo. According to research, this Salamancan bread is traditionally eaten to celebrate the end of Lent. Obviously, a great way to celebrate a fasting of meat is to eat lots of it (with the sausage). Back in the day, eggs were looked at as a ’sort of meat’ since they came from chickens and were not allowed to be eaten during Lent. They were preserved by hardboiling them and used in hornazo. Legend has it that this may actually be the beginnings of the term “easter egg”, according to Wikipedia. Also back in the day, during Lent, prostitutes in Salamenca were ordered across the river so that the men in town were able to concentrate on their religious observences. The men celebrated their ho’s coming home after Easter was over by partying and eating hornazo (maybe the word hornazo comes from what the men got when their ho’s returned?). This is how the “Monday of the Waters” festival began. Gotta love how Christianity puts a temporary bandaid on lustful thoughts and actions.

Even if you can’t find morcilla to add to your hornazo, you could still use this fabulous bread recipe and stuff it with whatever you choose. I know I’m going to make it all year round – why wait for Easter!? Happy Easter, everyone!

HORNAZO (SAUSAGE AND EGG-STUFFED EASTER BREAD) (makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

For bread:

• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1 package dry yeast
• 3 1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• cornmeal or breadcrumbs for sprinkling
• 1 egg white for brushing (optional)

For stuffing:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 pound bacon, sliced into bits
• 2 links of morcilla sausage, cut in half crosswise
• 2 links choizo, cut in half crosswise
• 2 hardboiled eggs, shelled

What to do:

1. Mix 1/4 cup of the warm water with the yeast. While this sits, mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and then add the softened yeast along with the remaining cup of water. Mix this with a wooden spoon until it’s all combined then turn out on a floured working surface.
2. The dough at this stage will really not hold together well, but as you knead it, it will become perfect. Knead dough for 10 (YES, 10) minutes, adding more flour if necessary.
3. Place the dough in a bowl greased with olive oil, roll the dough in the oil and cover cover with a towel. Allow to rise in a dark, draft-free and warm spot for about 3 hours, or until it doubles in size.
4. While the dough is rising, saute your bacon first, then save the crispy bits and the rendered fat (this is very important). Next, saute your morcilla and chorizo, put the rendered fat in the bacon fat to keep. Allow to cool. Make sure you hard-boil your eggs and allow to cool.
5. After the 3 hour dough resting period, punch down the dough and add a few tablespoons of the rendered fat to the dough as well as the bacon pieces. Knead this all together for awhile, adding more flour as necessary.



6. Shape into a ball once the oil and bacon is all incorporated. Next comes the interesting part. Using a knife, make slits in the dough and push in all the pieces of sausage as well as the whole eggs into them. You may need to pinch the dough to create a “seal” around the eggs/sausage. When this is done, you should not really see any of the fillings. It may seem impossible to fit all of these bits, but it really is. The more filling you have, the better the bread is. Don’t worry if some of it pops up. **NOTE: If I can, I recommend putting all the pieces of sausage in the same way so when you cut into the bread, you don’t cut length-wise, but cross-wise so it stays together a bit more easily.
7. Place the dough, pinched side down on a baking tray sprinkled with cornmeal. Flatten the dough slightly and allow to rise for another hour in a dark, warm, draft-free spot. It will double in size again.
8. Place the bread on the top shelf of a 450 degree oven with a pan of water on the bottom shelf of the oven, for 5 minutes. (OPTIONAL STEP: Remove the pan of oven and the mix the egg white with 1 teaspoon of water and brush on the bread.)
9. Continue to bake the bread 15 minutes more, or until well browned.

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