Start with the Basics

I've been in the casting process this week for the next play I'm directing, On Golden Pond.  Do you know the movie?  It had Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda as a couple in their late 70s who return to the same rural cabin in Maine every summer that they bought when they were newly married.  That's really about it for the plot, except for a subplot concerning their adult daughter and her difficult relationship with her father.

The movie came out when I was nine or ten, and I loved it.  What nine-year-old loves On Golden Pond?  I think mostly it was because I was obsessed with Katharine Hepburn.  As an aside, do you know if you type the name "Katharine" into Google, the first entry is for Katharine McPhee, who was on American Idol, and not Katharine Hepburn?  That just seems wrong.

Most people are nervous when they come audition.  The thing they don't know is that I'm nervous, too, because I really want to find the right people. 

It's a little like having the right ingredients--if the basics are solid, it's much harder to screw up the end product.

This month's Cake Slice pick didn't initially interest me--a loaf cake of frozen mousse sandwiched with chocolate wafers.  However, the mousse is simple and delicious.  I made a few adaptations to use coffee rather than espresso beans, and Kahlua rather than Frangelico because I don't think I've ever had Frangelico in the house.

We served it for the Bastille Day dinner, and it was delicious.  Better yet, I was able to make it a day ahead of time and didn't have to worry about it the day of the dinner party.

Frozen White Chocolate-Espresso Loaf Cake

Adapted from The Cake Book  by Tish Boyle

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 tsp. powdered gelatin

2 1/4 cups heavy cream

1/3 cup ground coffee

9 oz. good-quality white chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. Kahlua liqueur

Nabisco chocolate wafers

Line a large loaf pan with plastic wrap, ensuring that the ends of the wrap hang out of the pan.

To make the mousse, pour the water in a small coffee cup and sprinkle the powdered gelatin over it.  Let it sit for five minutes.  In the interim, make a small sachet out of cheesecloth (I used an old linen tea towel) and put the ground coffee in it.  Place the sachet and 1/2 cup of the cream in a small saucepan.  Bring the cream to a boil, then remove the pan from the heat and set it aside for at least fifteen minutes.

Place the coffee cup in the bottom of another small saucepan or skillet and add water until it comes halfway up the side of the cup.  Bring the water to the boil and stir the gelatin until it is totally dissolved.  Then turn off the heat and set the pan aside.

Remove the coffee sachet from the cream, squeezing it to release excess liquid.  Put the saucepan back on the heat and let it come to a boil.  Put the chocolate in a medium bowl, then pour the hot cream and gelatin over it.  Whisk the hot liquid into the chocolate until it is completely melted, then whisk in the vanilla and Kahlua. 

Let the chocolate mixture cool.  Then pour the remainder of the cream in a medium bowl and whip it to the soft peak stage using a hand mixer on medium speed.  Fold in the white chocolate mixture in three installments.

To make the cake, pour about one and a half cups of the mousse over the bottom of the loaf pan and smooth it.  Spread one of the chocolate wafers with a dollop of the mousse and press it against the long side of the pan.  Continue placing the chocolate wafers in rows in this same manner--you may need to break wafers in half to get to the end of the pan. 

When you put the second row in, make sure the wafers are sandwiched against the first row.  Continue until you have put it as many rows as possible, then carefully pour the remaining mousse in and spread it evenly.  Cover the pan with plastic wrap, ensuring that it is touching the mousse.  Freeze for at least four hours, or overnight.

To unmold, lift the edges of the plastic wrap.  Cut into 3/4 inch slices and allow them to stand a few minutes at room temperature before serving.

Makes approximately ten slices.

I Scream, You Scream

When I posted earlier this year that David and I were going to Rome, I received a couple of impassioned pleas to go check out particular foodie haunts.  One reader--I think it was Mike from The Culinary Lens--told me to go visit Gelato di San Crispino.  After a long, hot, jet-lagged day slogging around the Colosseum, Roman Forum and having the gates to the Baths of Caraculla closed on us because we were too late to get in, we decided to cut our losses and go get some gelato.  Smart decision.

Gelato di San Crisipino is tucked away on a tiny side street not terribly far from the Trevi Fountain.  It has a small sign out front, but the best way to locate it is a line of people out the door.  Once inside, there is a list of about twenty flavors, both fruit and cream, all made in-house.  Decide quickly, because the line moves fast and you don't want to be stuck stammering at the counter.

On that hot Monday, I selected zabaione, a cooked custard flavor, and chocolate rum.  David stuck with fruitier flavors, and we trekked up the hill to sit on a set of stairs and eat.  Let me tell you, it is worth the hype.  The flavors are pure and intense, and even the fruit flavors are unbelievably creamy.  It was almost enough to snap us out of our jet lag.  Almost.



That's David's "This is really good" face.

We went back two days later to see if it was as good as we remembered.  It was.

I once read that Alaskans eat more ice cream per capita than any other state in the country.  It seems a little random, but it's true that everyone is happy to see ice cream, particularly when it's homemade.  For a friend's birthday party, I made this gelato-like concoction.  It tastes like the best vanilla malt you've ever had.  Malt powder can be purchased from King Arthur's Flour.

This recipe has a softer consistency.  If you like your gelato firmer, freeze it in smaller containers.

Vanilla Malt Gelato

Adapted from Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Dessert Book

4 large eggs

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

4 cups heavy cream

2 cups 2% milk

2/3 cup malted milk powder

4 tsp. vanilla extract

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl until they are fluffy and pale yellow, then gradually whisk in the sugar.  Pour in the heavy cream and milk and whisk until thoroughly blended.



The gelato was particularly good with a homemade caramel sauce.



Whisk in the malt powder and vanilla, then allow the mixture to sit for 15 minutes.

Pour into an ice-cream freezer and process until it is a soft-serve consistency.  For my freezer, this was about half an hour.

Transfer the gelato to a large storage container and stash in the freezer.

Makes 2 quarts.

In Praise of the Potato

There's always a point during Passover when I whine about all the things I can't eat.  I'm a bread person, after all, and much as I like matzoh there comes a point when I get pouty.  My husband David, who is not Jewish despite the fact that he looks more Jewish than I do, occasionally eats a piece of toast while I stare at him in despair.  In his defense, it's probably not much fun for him either.

At this point during Passover, the humble potato becomes a lifesaver.  It's carbalicious, it's warm and satisfying, and it can be made into many different incarnations over the holiday.  Mashed potatoes.  Home fries.  Baked potatoes.  The list goes on.

I am not an enormous fan of potato gratin, or scalloped potatoes, but I recently bought David a copy of Alice Waters' new book.  We knew our seder was going to be of the dairy variety due to the high number of vegetarians, so I found myself looking at dairy-heavy vegetable dishes when I came across this one.

This may be the potato gratin that changes your opinions about potato gratins.  Delicately flavored with bay leaves and fresh thyme, it is creamy but not heavy.  Unlike a lot of potato gratins, there is no cheese, just a combination of milk and cream.

And, if you use a mandoline or food processor to slice the potatoes, it goes together fast.  I had intended to do a delicate overlapping layering of the potato slices, but with fourteen people coming in the door as we were finishing the preparations, it wasn't quite that artistic.  It also accounts for the distinct lack of photos.

This recipe easily doubles.  I recommend you make it immediately before it goes into the oven so the potato slices don't discolor;  you could make the potato slices ahead of time, but Waters warns against putting them in water because the potato starch will be lost.

Alice Waters' Potato Gratin

Adapted from In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters

2 tbsp. butter, cubed, plus more for buttering the dish

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1 cup 2% milk

1 tbsp. kosher salt

3/4 cup vegetable stock

2 bay leaves

3 1/2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled

1 tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped

Fresh-ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk, cream, bay leaves, salt and vegetable stock.  Heat the mixture to a simmer;  when it reaches a simmer, reduce the heat to low.

Butter a shallow, medium-sized gratin dish or casserole and set aside.  Slice the potatoes to approximately 1/8 inch thick using either a mandoline or food processor.  Immediately begin layering the potatoes into the casserole, ideally overlapping them.  However, if fourteen people are showing up at your door imminently, throw those potatoes into the dish to the best of your ability.

When the potatoes are in the dish, turn off the heat on the cream mixture and remove the bay leaves.  Pour the warm mixture over the potatoes, stopping just before it gets to the top of the potato slices.  If you overfill, it will spill over in your oven--I can attest to that.

Sprinkle the cubes of butter evenly over the gratin, then cover the pan with foil.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes;  check to make sure the potatoes can be pierced with a knife.  Then remove the foil, sprinkle the thyme and pepper over the potatoes, increase the heat to 400 degrees and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are lightly browned.

At this point, there will be quite a lot of cream in the bottom of the dish.  The dish can be served immediately, or you can let it rest for another 5 to 10 minutes to allow some of the remaining cream to absorb.

Easily serves 8 as a side dish.

Bit o' Honey

This week would have been kind of comical had it been someone else's life.  Let me count the way that things have gone wrong:

Eleemosynary:  Looked so good last week, total nightmare this week.  The set carpenter hasn't shown up for two days and one of the actors has taken it upon herself to declaim that she doesn't like the set or her costume.  Le sigh.

Deposition:  I went to Oregon Tuesday night, a trip that was ill-timed to begin with, to take a deposition on Wednesday morning.  Cue freak snowstorm that shut down parts of Oregon, including the one where the person I was deposing had to travel from--deposition cancelled.  The trip was all for naught.  Le sigh again.

The new living room furniture arrived--good news--and requires assembly.  However, the couch box wouldn't fit through the front door and the couch is in pieces in the garage.  In the meantime, my mother-in-law Hope arrives next week and David is going on a business trip.  See the problem?

I need a good night's sleep, enough time to exercise, a good opening night and perhaps a Valium.  Maybe not in that order.

Enough with the kvetching.  As part of my marathon cooking therapy session (I'm making that up, but maybe there should be such a thing) last weekend, I made gelato.  Our old ice-cream maker died an ignominious death a while ago, and we weren't motivated to replace it until a particularly unfortunate incident last month when the gorgeous vanilla ice cream base fully refused to freeze despite hours in the ice-cream maker.

But I didn't want ice cream:  I wanted gelato.  That's right, I'm dreaming of an Italian vacation that is two months away. 

This is a very basic gelato recipe that seems more or less fail safe.  The only word of caution is to use good-quality honey, because you really can taste it.  I used a clover honey, but next time I will use fireweed honey, which is flavored with the quintessential Alaska flower/weed that blooms everywhere in the summer.  Lavender honey would also be gorgeous.

Honey Gelato

Adapted from A16 Food + Wine

3 3/4 cups whole milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp. plus 1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 cup clover honey

Follow the instructions for your ice-cream maker;  the bowl of mine needs to be frozen overnight and this base needs to sit overnight, so start your prep the night before.

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk and cream.  Transfer three tablespoons of this mixture to a a bowl and stir in the cornstarch.

Heat the saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  Whisk in the cornstarch mixture, corn syrup, granulated sugar and sea salt.  Allow it to boil again, whisking often.

Strain the milk mixture through a cheesecloth or very fine sieve to remove any solids and stir in the honey.  Let the mixture come to room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When you're ready to make the gelato, give the mixture a good stir and pour into the bowl of the ice-cream maker.  Process until the mixture is the consistency of soft-serve frozen yogurt, then remove the bowl from the maker and return it to the freezer.  It will harden a bit more, but not much.

Makes approximately 1 1/2 quarts gelato.