Tag Archives: summer

Blackberry (Pie) Eating in the Month of September

I’ve been craving pie for a couple weeks now. It all started because I had a dinner party gig in Woodstock for which I baked a couple of peach pies. This week, I finally decided to do something about it. And I even remembered that I had lard in my freezer that my friend Nicole Taylor had bartered with me. I’ve never made a lard pie crust before, so I was super excited to experiment. Let me tell you — I’ll never go back to just all-butter crusts again. Now, butter crusts are delicious, which is why I went about searching for a lard and butter pie crust recipe. The butter imparts flavor (and gives the crust its flakiness), but the lard bestows upon it divinely tender texture. Truly a match made in heaven.

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The pies that started it all.

As for the berries… I’ve hardly eaten any berries at all this summer. I don’t know what I’ve been doing, wasting precious summer months without eating berries! And September is generally peak blackberry season, so I went forth to the Union Square Greenmarket in search of blackberries. Phillips Farms did not disappoint me. And so, armed with ripe blackberries and lard, and a couple of solid recipes, I made a pie celebrating the tail end of summer.

A few notes. I made a lattice-topped pie, as you’ll see in the photo, but I think that I ought to have made it a tighter weave or a solid-topped pie to hold the pie together a little better. The recipe as written below is for a solid top, but I’ve also included a link to lattice-top instructions at the end. There was an advantage to the loosely-woven lattice top, however. I didn’t add the optional sugar to the pie before baking it (I always err on the side of less sweet). And, in fact, the pie was a bit too tart even for me. So, the next day, I sprinkled about 3 tablespoons of sugar over the whole thing and put it back in the oven for about 20 minutes, and it was perfect.

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Mmm… pie… (the lard is in that half-pint container)

Blackberry Pie with Lard-and-Butter Pie Crust

makes one 10-inch pie

PIE CRUST
(adapted from Leite’s Culinaria)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
13 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 tablespoons cold lard
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water

  1. Mix flour and salt in food processor fitted with a metal blade.
  2. Cut in butter cubes with five 1-second pulses. Add cold lard and continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no bigger than small peas, about 4 additional 1-second pulses. Turn mixture out into a medium-sized bowl.
  3. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of ice water over mixture. With a fork, fluff to mix thoroughly. Squeeze a handful of dough — if it doesn’t stick together, add remaining water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  4. Divide dough into two balls, one slightly larger than the other then flatten into 6-inch discs. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling.

BLACKBERRY FILLING
(adapted from Food52.com)

Ingredients
4 cups blackberries
3/4 cup honey (blackberry honey if you can find it)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice
3 tablespoons instant tapioca
1/4 teaspoon salt
Optional – 1/4 cup super fine sugar, or to your taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and drain the berries.
  2. In a large bowl: add the berries, honey, lemon or lime juice, tapioca, and salt. Taste test before adding optional superfine sugar. Stir the mixture and let sit for 15-20 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.
  3. Line a 10 inch pie dish with a rolled out bottom layer of pie crust. Fill with the blackberry mixture and dot with butter.
  4. Roll out the remaining pastry crust and cover the top of the pie. Seal and crimp the edges together. Brush with milk or cream. Sprinkle with a little sugar. Cut a few slits, with a sharp knife, to create steam vents.
  5. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until the crust is browned and the filling is bubbling.

Notes:
I recommend covering a baking sheet with foil and baking the pie on top of that — your oven will thank you.

Here’s an instructional video from Saveur magazine on how to weave a proper lattice top.

Citrus-Ginger Tofu Salad with Kelp Noodles

One of my clients loves soba noodles, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting soba recipes. This week, I came across a recipe for Citrus Ginger Tofu Salad with Soba Noodles on Food52, and I prepared it for my client, pretty much as the recipe is written. It is everything you’d want to eat in the summer — bright, refreshing, full of crunchy vegetables. I highly recommend the recipe as written.

The version I made for myself later in the week had a few modifications. For one, I substituted kelp noodles for the soba because I had them on hand. Why did I have kelp noodles on hand? I’ve been meaning to experiment with them for some time because I’m attempting to incorporate more sea vegetables into my diet. The trace minerals found in sea vegetables — including iodine, which was added to table salt to prevent goiters in the early 20th century — are especially beneficial for thyroid health and other hormonal functions. The noodles have no flavor or color — they look like glass noodles — and they’re crunchy. However, after the salad marinated in the fridge overnight, the texture of the noodles resembled that of rice noodles. Also, they’re a raw food, if you’re into that kind of thing.

I also modified the variety of vegetables in the salad, based on what I already had in the refrigerator. For one, I peeled and grated the broccoli stalk, a sadly underutilized ingredient. It’s sweet and crunchy, and it adds another lovely layer of flavor and texture to any summer slaw. The recipe yields a lot of salad, and I’ve been eating the leftovers for the past few days. (If you know me, you know that I hate leftovers, so the fact that I’m not sick of this salad yet is a big recommendation unto itself.)

Here, I served myself the salad without the baked tofu to accompany some seared sockeye salmon. For breakfast because I love a really savory breafast.

Here, I served myself the salad without the baked tofu to accompany some seared sockeye salmon. For breakfast because I love a really savory breakfast.

Citrus-Ginger Tofu Salad with Kelp Noodles
Serves 4 (generously)

For the Tofu + Marinade:

  • 1 ounce orange juice
  • 1 ounce tamari (or other soy sauce, such as shoyu)
  • 1 ounce toasted sesame oil
  • 1 ounce sunflower seed oil (may substitute: grape seed, peanut, raw sesame oil)
  • 1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 2 teaspoons maple syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 package extra firm tofu

Preparing the Tofu + Marinade: Preheat the oven to 350º Fahrenheit. In a bowl mix together orange juice, tamari, sesame oil, sunflower oil, ginger, garlic, maple syrup, and cayenne and set aside.

Cut the tofu into 1-inch cubes and place into a small baking pan without overlapping. Pour the marinade over the tofu. Put the tofu into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, stir, and bake for 15 minutes more until browned. With a slotted spoon, scoop out the tofu and place onto a plate and allow to cool. Pour the remaining marinade into a bowl and set aside.

For the Salad:

  • Leftover marinade
  • Zest of 1 lime
  • Juice of 1/2 lime
  • 1 ounce orange juice
  • 3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
  • salt to taste
  • 1 (12-ounce) package kelp noodles*
  • florets from 1 bunch of broccoli
  • stalks from 1 bunch of broccoli, peeled and coarsely grated
  • 3 small carrots, peeled and coarsely grated (I used a variety of rainbow carrots)
  • 2 cups shredded red cabbage
  • 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 8 basil leaves, thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

Preparing the citrus vinaigrette: Add the lemon zest and juice to the remaining marinade. Continue to add the orange juice, rice vinegar, maple syrup, and sea salt to taste. Set aside.

Preparing the salad: Rinse the kelp noodles in cold water and drain. Set aside. Meanwhile, bring a small pot of water to a boil, and blanch the broccoli florets for 30 seconds. Immediately strain the florets and rinse with cold water. Put the blanched broccoli florets, shredded broccoli stalks, carrots, cabbage, cilantro, basil, and sesame seeds into a large bowl and toss. Dress the salad with the citrus vinaigrette. Serve the salad topped with baked tofu and garnished with sesame seeds.

*You can find kelp noodles at Whole Foods and most health-food stores.

CSA Quandary: Zucchini

For the past two weeks, I’ve received four pounds of zucchini in my CSA share. I like zucchini just fine, but it’s not my favorite vegetable, so (with the help of Facebook and Twitter) I crowd-sourced some ideas of what to do with my bounty. Food writer Leah Koenig linked me to her zucchini post on Saveur’s website.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake piqued my interest because of its seemingly bizarre combination of ingredients. The recipe is good — very easy to follow. I, of course, complicated matters because I was missing a few ingredients and had no interest in schlepping out to the grocery store at 9pm. The missing ingredients: corn oil, one of the two eggs, and buttermilk.

The substitutions:

  • Corn Oil: The only cooking fats in my house last night were virgin coconut oil (I didn’t want to make the cake coco-nutty), butter, ghee, and duck fat. (This is why I need to go grocery shopping sooner rather than later.) I decided to go with melted butter. If I hadn’t just finished all my olive oil, I would have used that as a replacement.
  • One Egg: Having gone to a culinary school with a heavily vegan curriculum, I learned that flax seeds can act as egg replacers in baked goods. 1 egg = 1 tablespoon finely ground flax seeds + 3 tablespoons water
  • Buttermilk: I happened to have whole milk on hand. Generally, 1 cup buttermilk = 7.5 ounces milk + 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar or lemon juice.
The results were good, although I think I overcooked the cake slightly. I’m still figuring out the calibration of my oven. I also omitted powdered sugar because my sweet tooth simply isn’t that strong. Here is the recipe as I have prepared it.
Chocolate Zucchini Bread (tweaked)
Serves 8
Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon flax seeds, finely ground
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
  • 3 1/2 ounces whole milk
  • 2 medium zucchini, trimmed and grated on large holes of box grater
  • 9 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
  • 2 3/4 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
Procedure
  1. Make Egg Replacer: stir together ground flax seeds and water. Set aside.
  2. Make Buttermilk Substitute: stir together vinegar and whole milk. Set aside.
  3. Working in batches, put a small mound of zucchini in center of large square of double-layer cheesecloth. Gather corners together and squeeze out as much water as possible. Transfer zucchini to a bowl and set aside.
  4. Preheat oven to 325º. Butter a deep 9″ cake pan with 1 tablespoon of the butter. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together into a mixing bowl and set aside. Beat together remaining 8 tablespoons of butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
  5. Add melted butter, beating well. Beat in egg, then egg replacer. Add vanilla, reduce speed to low, and beat in flour mixture and buttermilk substitute in 3 alternate batches. Stir in reserved zucchini.
  6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to let cool. Invert onto a plate and dust with sugar.

Not the prettiest presentation, but it sure is tasty!

Rhubarb: not just for dessert anymore!

A quick note about rhubarb. This week, our CSA fruit share included about 3 pounds of rhubarb from Briermere Farms, and I’ve been contemplating what to do with it. I’ll most likely make a few pints of this delicious Rhubarb-Vanilla Jam from Food 52 that I made last year, but I’m also thinking about savory uses for rhubarb. Rhubarb, in and of itself, isn’t sweet, but it’s most often paired with strawberries in jams, compotes and pies. I found this savory, Indian-inspired recipe for a Rhubarb Lentil Stew last year, and I thought it was brilliant. Usually, I’ll add lemon juice to lentil-based soups and stews to add that bright burst of tartness that balances out the earthy flavor of the legumes. In Mark Bittman’s recipe, the rhubarb provides not only the necessary acidity, but also complex flavor and texture to an already flavorful dish. As with so many of Mark Bittman’s recipes, this one is minimal effort for maximum pleasure. Enjoy!

Lentil and Rhubarb Stew with Indian Spices by Mark Bittman

Ingredients
  • 3 or 4 stalks rhubarb, strings removed, chopped
  • 1 cup orange lentils, well washed
  • 2 tablespoons minced ginger
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 4 cardamom pods
  • 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
  • 2 cloves
  • 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
  • 1 dried ancho or other mild chili, optional
  • Salt
  • Chopped cilantro leaves for garnish
Method
  • Combine all ingredients except salt and cilantro in a saucepan and add water to cover by about 1 inch. Cook at a steady simmer until lentils and rhubarb are quite soft, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove cloves and, if you like, cardamom pods. Add salt, then taste and adjust seasoning. Garnish with cilantro and serve.