The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Now, as I understand the migrations of my paternal grandmother’s family (the branch most associated with the pierogi-eating parts of the world), they were German Catholics who spent some time living in Russia, elected to move to Argentina to avoid joining the Tsar’s armies, went back to Germany, and thence to the Canadian prairies (where my grandmother was born), where they were surrounded by Ukrainians. So, while it’s not entirely clear to me whether pierogis are a traditional German food, at least my family lived in pierogi-eating parts of the world for a good long time.

However, just because we’ve got some history with the pierogi doesn’t mean I felt constrained to try to recreate the Russian- or Polish-style pierogi, though I did take some inspiration from there.

I started by making (small-ish) quantities of four different fillings, to give myself some direction as well as some variety. I do really love the mashed potato fillings and so I had to try that, but I added some garlic and black pepper to the fried onion, and skipped most of the cheese – instead of an entire cup of dry cottage cheese, I went with a few tablespoons of finely grated sharp cheddar. I also made a cabbage filling, but instead of sauerkraut I used the mustardy smothered cabbage recipe from Vegan Soul Kitchen. I also made a few pierogi using the sauteed jalapeno corn from the same book. Finally, thinking of the mushroom “caviar” I’ve made once to top buckwheat pancakes, I concocted a mushroom-and-shallot filling with a slug of red wine vinegar. We ultimately fried them in a bit of butter after boiling, and ate them with some good bacon, sour cream, and chives snipped from one of my plants. Along with a gigantic spinach salad to make me feel like the meal approximated some balance.

DC pierogi – filling collage by tariqata

The best of the four fillings, by far, were the potato-onion-cheese filling, and the cabbage; the mushrooms were tasty, but had a tendency to slide out of the pierogi shell, and the flavour of the (otherwise delicious) jalapeno corn was overwhelmed. So, when I was prevailed upon to join a friend’s freezer swap, I went with the potato and cabbage pierogis – and have since concluded that, delicious though they are, folding 150-odd pierogis is just about the most time-consuming job I can imagine. I’ll definitely be making pierogis again in the future – just not as a main meal for twelve. And next time, I’ll save the jalapeno corn for a meal where it can shine, and serve the mushrooms on top of the pierogis.

DC pierogi – f ried pierogies by tariqata

Pierogi Dough

2 to 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
About 1 cup lukewarm water

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl, then make a well in the centre, pour in the egg and water, and knead to form a soft, elastic dough. I found it helpful to let it rest for a half hour to an hour before I tried to roll it out.

Roll out the dough thinly, and cut into circles using a glass or a 4″ biscuit cutter.

DC pierogi – rolled out dough by tariqata

Spoon in a tablespoon or so of filling, fold over the edges, and press together using the tines of a fork.

The pierogi can be frozen at this point, or they can be dropped into a large pot of boiling water. They will float to the top when they are cooked; at this point, they can be eaten as they are, or fried briefly to give a bit of crispness to the shell, or frozen.

Potato, Onion, and Cheese Filling (adapted from the posted Daring Cooks recipe)

3 medium red-skinned potatoes
1 large onion, thinly sliced
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
salt and black pepper to taste
paprika
4 Tbsp grated sharp cheddar
1 egg white
2 Tbsp yoghurt (optional; I added it to get my potatoes a little creamier)
up to 2 Tbsp butter (again, to make the potatoes creamier)

Boil the potatoes in their skins until tender; drain and set aside. Meanwhile, fry the onions and garlic in a little butter or olive oil in a cast-iron skillet until the onion is caramelized.

Roughly chop the boiled potatoes (no need to peel them) and add then to the skillet with the onions. Using a wooden spoon or a spatula or a potato masher, mash the potatoes together with the onion and garlic.

Transfer to a large bowl (I found it easier to manage this way) and continue mashing to your preferred consistency (I like mine to be whipped potatoes), adding in the egg white, cheese, yoghurt, and butter as well as the seasonings.

Jalapeno Corn (adapted from Vegan Soul Kitchen)

Note: I’m sure this is sublime with fresh corn, but it works fine with frozen, too.

2 cups fresh or frozen sweet corn
1 jalapeno, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin powder
salt & pepper to taste

Saute the jalapeno, garlic, and cumin in a little olive oil. Add in the corn. Continue to saute until the corn is fully cooked; stir in a little salt and pepper, taste, and adjust the seasonings.

Mushroom, Shallot, and Red Wine Vinegar Pierogi Filling

1/2 lb cremini mushrooms, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
salt & pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan, and saute the mushrooms and shallot in the olive oil. When the mushrooms are limp and the shallot is golden, pour in the red wine vinegar.

Let the pot simmer over low heat for a few minutes, until the liquid has mostly evaporated. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

DC pierogi – four fillings by tariqata

As a mostly vegetarian cook (cooking chicken or fish perhaps once or twice in a month), I don’t have to deal with squicky ingredients as a general rule. Although looking back many of the recipes I’ve featured here have involved chicken, my go-to non-Daring cooking is much, much more likely to be a variation of masur dal or chana masala. I usually work two or three rice and bean meals into my grocery lists – and I could go on for months without repeating myself. I like this style of cooking not just because it’s delicious, filling, and cheap, but because I’m a wimp. Dried chickpeas have no fat or bones or gristle or scales or shells to be trimmed away. So when the Daring Cooks came up with pâté for the June challenge, the gauntlet was really thrown down. I wasn’t inspired by the vegetarian tri-colour pâté (combining white beans, roasted red peppers, and pesto), and I was not at all sure that I could handle a liver pâté (nor was I sure that I could convince the fellow to eat it!), but the shrimp and trout pâté seemed challenging yet edible. And then someone mentioned that bánh mì are often made with pâté, and I knew how I was going to meet the challenge requirements.

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

I decided it was time to roll up my sleeves and prove that, grossed out or not, I could peel a shrimp just as easily as I could make bread – in this case, Vietnamese-style mini-baguettes, following a recipe from HomeBaking.

And if this month’s Daring Cooks challenge taught me anything at all, it’s that shrimp have way too many legs. And removing those legs is an icky process. But hey, I can do it. (I’m not going to go this far just yet though. Somebody else deal with the heads!) In the end, I didn’t love the trout and shrimp pâté, finding it simply too rich to want to eat more than a few bites even when worked into a sandwich, but I did a) learn how to peel a shrimp, b) flambé for the first time, and c) try a recipe for a broccoli and nut terrine and make crackers as well. So thanks are due to Valerie and Evelyne!

I followed the challenge recipe for the shrimp and trout pâté fairly closely, but I did make only a half-batch (quantities follow), which was more than enough for two people.

Trout and Shrimp Pâté

1/2 tbsp butter
120 g raw black tiger shrimp, peeled and de-veined (I used about 6 shrimp)
15 ml bourbon
200 g trout filet, skinned and cut into thick chunks
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt, to taste
coarsely ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 375F – I used a toaster oven, given the small size of the pâté.

In a heavy skillet, melt the butter and sauté half of the shrimp, until pink and cooked through; these shrimp will be used to form a layer in the middle of the pâté, so if they are quite thick it might be a good idea to cut them in half. Remove the pan from the heat and pour on the alcohol, then carefully light it with a match to flambé the shrimp. Allow the flames to die on their own – but have a lid in your hand to smother them if they get out of hand (i.e., don’t be like me!).

Use a food processor to mince the remaining raw shrimp and the trout. Gradually pour in the cream until you have a spreadable, soft, but not liquid mixture.

Butter the bottom and sides of a ramekin. Spoon in half the shrimp and trout mixture, then form a layer with the sautéed shrimp, and finally top with the remaining half of the shrimp and trout mixture. Season with a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.

Bake at 375F for 35 minutes or so, until the pâté is cooked through and firm in the centre.

Vietnamese Mini-Baguettes (from HomeBaking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid)

1 cup rice flour
1 cup pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups lukewarm water
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp wheat malt syrup or 1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
~4 cups all-purpose flour

Makes 8 mini-baguettes (about 17-18 cm long)

Notes: This is a pretty straightforward bread recipe; the only unusual thing (from my perspective, at least!) was the addition of rice flour. I think – though I’m not certain – that this is the source of the bread’s elusive sweetness. I halved the recipe without incident, and got 4 rolls. It’s not anything like a classic French baguette, but it was tasty and stood up well to being covered in mayo and sriracha! I used my stand mixer, but the dough wasn’t terribly wet and could easily be made by hand. Alford and Duguid note – correctly – that these breads dry out very quickly.

Combine the rice flour and the pastry flour in a bowl and set aside.

If using a stand mixer, put the water and yeast into the bowl of the mixer and stir to dissolve the yeast (I just did this step by hand), then add the sugar (or malt syrup) and the rice flour mixture and mix on low speed until all the flour is moistened.

Sprinkle on the salt and 3 1/2 cups of the all-purpose flour, and knead for 3 minutes on low speed. At this point, I found the dough to be a bit stiff and added about 2 Tbsp of water, and then continued to knead for another minute or so. You could also turn it out and knead by hand for another minute.

Turn the dough out into a clean bowl and let it rise for 1 1/2 hours or until more than doubled in volume.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 8 pieces; roll each piece into a ball and then flatten slightly. Cover the dough balls and leave it for 10 minutes.

Shape the rolls into a tapered cylinder, each about 17-18 cm long; I did this by flattening the dough pieces into ovals and then rolling them up.

Begin preheating the oven to 425F. Place the rolls on a parchment-covered baking sheet and let rise for 30 minutes.

Bake the breads for about 20 minutes. If you have a water-sprayer (which I don’t), mist the breads with water 3 or 4 times in the first 10 minutes of baking – but if you don’t, they’ll still taste good.

My roommate, as I recall, didn’t bake, but I think if she’d tried this, she would have loved it. I love it so much that I’ve made it three times over the past month, though for different groups of people, and I’m looking forward to the next occasion I have to make it. I do bake the occasional multi-layered celebration cake – I’m working my way through Sky High! – but this simple cake is the kind of cake I like best.

That is, the kind of cake that you can eat with your hands as easily as you can eat it with a fork, and the kind of cake that needs nothing at all to make it more delicious.

Next time, I might add a cinnamon stick or a few crushed cardamom pods to the syrup that the cake is soaked with, or switch out the lemon for orange, or try mixing in some pistachios or walnuts or replace some of the semolina with ground almonds – there are so many possibilities, and every one of them delicious. But these changes would only be for the joy of experimenting with new flavours and textures.

That’s what I find most enjoyable about HomeBaking, and that’s one reason why I can’t wait to add it to my cookbook collection: I have always tried to be adventurous with the flavours and ingredients that I cook with, but I think my baking may have fallen into a rut. I can whip up a batch of biscuits or a pie crust from memory because I do it so often, but I don’t think that I ever made a syrup-soaked cake before this, though it’s a common thing to do in some parts of the world, just as I’d never thought to use coconut to add texture to banana bread.

It’s good to be reminded of the incredibly wide world of flavours and techniques, and Alford and Duguid do it so well.

Semolina 1-2-3 Cake

From HomeBaking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Ingredients:

For the cake:

2 cups coarsely ground semolina
2 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 cups yoghurt
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
zest of 2 lemons
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

For the syrup:

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp rosewater
1/4 tsp orange flower water
2 tsp lemon juice
4 Tbsp butter

Notes: In the last batch I made, I replace the butter in the cake with an equal quantity of olive oil: I didn’t detect much difference in flavour (though possibly that’s because I didn’t use a really good-quality olive oil; I just wanted to see if it would save me the trouble of beating cold butter into the sugar), but it baked up just as nicely.

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease an 8 x 8 square baking pan with butter or oil.

Place the semolina, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Beat together the sugar and the butter until fluffy, then beat in the yoghurt. Stir in the lemon zest and juice. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and fold together with a spatula until the dry ingredients are thoroughly blended in.

Pour the cake batter, which will be fairly thick, into the prepared baking pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes, until the top is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

While the cake bakes, make the syrup: in a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium heat. As soon as this mixture boils, add the lemon juice, rosewater, and orange flower water. Stir the flavourings in and remove the pot from heat. Add the butter, cut into small chunks, and stir until it is melted. There will be about 1 1/2 cups of syrup. Let it cool to room temperature: I transferred mine to a liquid measuring cup and put it in the fridge, and just stirred the butter back in when I removed it, because it should be added to the cake very shortly after the cake is taken out of the oven.

Pour the syrup over the cake and let it sit until absorbed, at least one hour. I used a fork to poke a grid pattern into my cakes before adding the syrup, too, but I’m going to skip this step next time and see if the syrup is still absorbed as quickly.

This cake keeps really well if it is covered, but I think if it’s being kept for more than a couple of days it’s probably best to put it in the fridge; it was beginning to soften up quite a bit by the third day.

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge – stacked green chile and chicken enchiladas (though I’ve always called this a tortilla strata and saved the term “enchiladas” for tortillas rolled around the filling and baked) was an excellent opportunity to revisit the dish and strive for authenticity.

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

I decided to finally take my grandmother up on her offer to let me borrow her tortilla press (I think it may be a permanent loan!) and make my own corn tortillas. My first attempt at this, a few years ago, was a miserable failure, but I was ready to try again. I visited the Perola Supermarket in Kensington for masa harina, fresh tomatillos, and poblano chilies. If anyone found Anaheim chilies in Toronto, I’d love to know where!

I also made a second batch for the fellow’s family, using chicken chorizo, potatoes, and mushrooms for the filling, with a spicy tomato-based sauce. I have no pictures, but I’ll have to sit down and figure out exactly what I put into it, because it was really good too.

I served both versions of the enchiladas with the Mexican red rice from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s Seductions of Rice – at some point soon I’ll write that up as a post in itself, because it’s a book that deserves some dedicated attention.

Barbara and Bunnee, thanks for another wonderful challenge!

I stuck very close to the challenge recipe for my green chile enchiladas, but did make a few adjustments based on my preferences and the ingredients I could find:

Stacked Green Chile and Chicken Enchiladas

1½ pounds fresh poblano chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles) roasted and peeled and chopped coarsely.
7-8 ounces tomatillos (about 4-5 medium)
4 cups chicken broth
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped coarsely
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening)
4 boneless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons olive oil
12 small corn tortillas (I actually used 18, though)
1 cup (or so) grated queso fresco and cheddar
Cilantro for garnish, chopped and sprinkled

Notes: I marinated my chicken in a mix of buttermilk, garlic, and chilies for most of a day, then grilled it. I’m not sure how much this added flavour-wise or tenderness wise, but the chicken was fairly good, and shredded easily enough. I also didn’t bother to peel my tomatillos or de-seed my chilies – this last might have made more of a difference with spicier chilies, I’m not sure. As it was, my sauce was tasty but (in my opinion) not spicy in the least. I was serving it to relatives less spice-fanatic than I, so I was very conservative, but next time I make this, I’ll certainly add a few hot chilies or some hot sauce.

I used Rick Bayless’ recipe for the corn tortillas, quite successfully, though I only had one frying pan.

For the chicken breasts:

As noted, marinate if you choose. I grilled the chicken breasts just before I was ready to put the enchiladas together, until they were just cooked through, then shredded them up.

For the sauce:

Step one is to roast the peppers: place an oven rack fairly close to the top of the oven, and pre-heat to 450F. Brush the peppers all over with olive oil and place them on a cookie sheet (lined with foil or parchment for ease in moving the peppers around). Place the cookie sheet in the oven and roast the peppers until they are blackened on all sides. I checked mine every ten minutes or so, and when one side was blackened, turned them over. Set them aside, covered with a cloth, to cool for at least 10 minutes. Remove the skins and stems and chop the peppers coarsely.

While the peppers are roasting, bring a pot of water to boil. Remove any papery skins from the tomatillos, and then boil the tomatillos for 8 minutes or so, until tender.

In a saucepan, combine the chicken broth, garlic, chopped chilies, tomatillos, onion, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. I used an immersion blender to puree the mixture. Bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the cornstarch, mixed with a bit of water; stir well and continue to simmer until the sauce is thickened and reduced to 4 to 5 cups.

For the stacked enchiladas:

Spread a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Top with a single layer of tortillas, followed by a layer of chicken, followed by sauce, followed by cheese, and then repeat beginning with another layer of tortillas. I always try to end with a layer of tortillas, then sauce, then cheese.

Bake the casserole at 375F for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling. Let it rest for 10 minutes or so, then serve.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

This is only my third Daring Baker’s challenge, but there’s no doubt that so far, this is the one that’s required me to step the most beyond what’s familiar to me. Fortunately, although Esther recommended using suet to make the puddings more authentic, it wasn’t a requirement (my semi-vegetarian, health conscious family thanks her), and as it turns out, steaming a pudding isn’t hard. It merely takes some improvisation. Thanks to Audax, my mother’s crockpot immediately suggested itself as an excellent steaming apparatus, combined with a couple of pyrex bowls and a wadded up dishtowel. Getting the bowls out of the crockpot after the puddings were cooked was a scary process, but there were, happily, no disasters.

Since I had not had any idea that one could steam a pie – and certainly I had no idea that it would turn out deliciously – I knew I was going to do at least one version in a pastry crust. I opted for savoury, because we love lentil and vegetable pie with mushroom gravy in this house. Just to be different, though, since I wasn’t going to use suet, I used coconut oil instead of butter – with excellent results. And I had to do a sponge version too, because who doesn’t love cake? The only requirement I had for the sponge version was that it incorporate dulce de leche, which I’ve fallen in love with in a big way ever since a classmate brought some amazing coconut-crusted macaron-type cookies filled with it to our end-of-year potluck. After the coconut-banana bread I’d made the week before, combining the two was as natural as breathing.

I’ve included only my adaptations here, but Esther’s recipes as originally posted are extremely detailed and give lots more variations.

Lentil and Vegetable Pudding with Coconut Oil Pastry (adapted from Esther’s suet-crust pudding recipe and Bryant Terry’s vegan pastry recipe for Jamaican Patties)

250 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
175 g room temperature coconut oil
a pinch salt and pepper
about 1/2 cup of milk

Notes: I followed my general pastry-making strategy, minus the rule about having everything as cold as possible, and the results were delicious and the pastry was relatively easy to roll.

Filling Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown or green lentils
2-3 cups chopped vegetables (I used a mix of sliced mushrooms, shredded cabbage, and some leftover garlic-mashed potatoes)
1 onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp harissa
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Notes: The measurements for the pie filling are very approximate.

Prepare your steaming apparatus and butter the inside of a large bowl. I used my mom’s big crockpot and a pyrex bowl that sort of hung on the lip of the crockpot – it was the only possible bowl, but I think this probably works better if you can fit the pudding bowl right into the steamer.

For the pastry:

Whisk the flour, salt, pepper, and baking powder together. Cut in the coconut oil with a pastry cutter or your hands (although note that coconut oil will stick to your hands far more than butter will). Add in the milk, a tablespoon at a time, until the pastry comes together in a smooth, elastic dough. Set aside – but do not refrigerate!

For the filling:

Heat the oil in a large sautee pan on medium heat. Pour in the onions and sautee for about 10 minutes, until they are nicely caramelized. Remove from heat and mix in the lentils, vegetables, and seasonings until everything is thoroughly combined.

To assemble and steam the pudding:

When ready to use, divide the pastry into two. Roll out one piece and use it to line the pudding bowl. Spoon in the filling and then top with remaining pastry. Cover the bowl tightly with foil or a tight-fitting lid, and then fit it into the steaming apparatus. Steam for about 5 hours; the pastry crust should be nicely browned at this point.

Remove the bowl from the steamer and let rest for 10 minutes or so, then turn it out onto a plate. Serve with mushroom gravy.

Mushroom Gravy

2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 sliced onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 – 2 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper
dash of Worcestershire sauce

Heat the olive oil in a large pan on medium heat, then add the onions. Sautee for a few minutes, then pour in the mushrooms. Sautee for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked.

Pour in the red wine. When the wine is mostly evaporated, add the stock; whisk in the flour. Continue to heat until the gravy is thick and bubbling hot.

Season to taste with salt, pepper, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce.

Coconut-Banana Pudding with Dulce de Leche (adapted from Esther’s sponge pudding recipe and Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s coconut banana bread)

100 g all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
100 g coarse semolina flour
75 g white sugar
75 g softened butter
1 large egg
1 pureed banana
75 g dried shredded unsweetened coconut
6 Tbsp coconut milk
About 6 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk

Notes: The coarse semolina replaced the breadcrumbs in the original recipe, because I had it on hand, and I think it worked really well, but definitely, especially combined with the coconut, meant the pudding had a lot of texture although it was very moist. I don’t know how traditional that is; I just know that I thought it was good. My measurements for the shredded coconut and the sweetened condensed milk are guesstimates; I had about half a can of the condensed milk in the fridge and used all of it, and I just threw in a big handful of the coconut. I didn’t bother, but you could serve this with extra dulce de leche and it would, I’m sure, be delicious.

Prepare your steaming apparatus. Butter a 950 mL bowl which will fit in your steamer.

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder, then add the semolina and sugar and softened butter. Cream everything together.

In another bowl – or in a food processor, if you’re lazy like me – mix together the coconut milk, egg, and pureed banana. Stir this mixture into the creamed butter and dry ingredients to make a soft batter. Stir in the shredded coconut.

Pour the sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of the prepared pudding bowl, then spoon the batter on top. Cover the bowl tightly with tinfoil or a tight-fitting lid and place in the steamer. Steam for about 5 hours, then remove the pudding. Allow to rest for 10 minutes or so, then turn it out onto a plate.

Then I got the book out of the library, because I’m on a bit of a self-imposed book-buying diet, for reasons of cost and space. (This means that expensive and space-occupying cookbooks are right out, and I’m limiting myself to three or four used paperbacks per month. Which is about two to three days worth of reading material. Given the limitations of the local library’s science fiction section, I have a small problem.)

Then I went back to the library and borrowed as many of their other books as I could get my hands on.

Now I’m going to have to acquire all of the couple’s books, even if it takes me some time. And while I’m really enjoying Mangoes and Curry Leaves, as well as Seductions of Rice, and I’ve tried several recipes from each, HomeBaking is the one that’s moved to the top of my list. It’s the banana bread that did it, although I plan to share one more recipe from the book before I (sadly) let the library have it back. (I’m getting anxious for my next opportunity to splurge on cookbooks now, I must say.)

I’ve made quite a few banana bread recipes over the years (that being my favourite way to eat bananas), and Alford and Duguid’s recipe is, hands down, the best one I’ve ever eaten. It’s not the healthiest version, but one must face up to the fact, as I have, that while it’s called banana bread it is in fact a banana cake. “Healthy” is not a requirement. A perfect tight moist crumb packed with banana flavour is. This one delivers in a big way.

And seriously, how is it that I’ve never before encountered a banana bread recipe with shredded coconut? Because that addition is sheer genius. It adds texture and flavour without overpowering the banana-ness the way chocolate chips do, and without making the bread dry the way whole wheat flour or oatmeal might. The sprinkling of demerera sugar before baking is – rather literally – icing on the cake.

Banana-Coconut Bread for Pam (from HomeBaking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World, Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Duguid)

8 medium to large frozen bananas or overripe bananas
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 lb (2 sticks; 1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar (I used white, but I plan to try brown on the next go-round)
1/4 tsp rice vinegar
3 Tbsp dark rum
1 cup dried shredded unsweetened coconut
about 2 Tbsp demerara or dark brown sugar for topping

Notes: If you can find it, it’s definitely worth using crunchy demerara rather than dark brown sugar; the textural contrast made it so much more than a puddle of sugar on top of a cake. Additionally, Alford and Duguid have a method for freezing and defrosting bananas that is far superior to my usual “oh, these bananas are looking black, I’ll just toss them into the freezer as they are” strategy: peel the fruit and chop it into chunks, freeze overnight on a tray, then transfer the pieces to a freezer bag. Defrost in a bowl and keep the juices to add to the banana puree.

Preheat your oven to 350F and butter two 9×5 inch loaf pans.

Puree the bananas. (I often do this with my handy pastry cutter, but I used a food processor this time. You want the bananas to be pretty well pureed.) Measure out three cups (more or less; I had a bit more and used it all, not having much use for an extra half cup of banana puree).

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.

With a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vinegar and rum; beat briefly. Add the banana puree and the flour mixture alternately, beating until smooth after each addition. Stir in the shredded coconut.

Divide the batter between the prepared loaf pans, then sprinkle the top of each loaf with about 1 Tbsp of the demerara sugar.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until golden; let the loaves cool for 20 minutes in the pan before turning them out onto a rack.

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club. It was great fun, too; thanks, Wolf!

Now, being Canadian, the first thing that sprang to my mind when I read the name “Brunswick Stew” was, naturally, New Brunswick, which called to mind visions of seafood, which scares me a little. Because I’m a snobby Torontonian, the second was the Brunny, more properly known as The Brunswick House, a notoriously icky pub. Now, I’ve never actually been there, because the fellow in my life is a wee bit older than me and he has, and we started dating a few months before I was legally old enough to drink, so I sort of skipped the phase in my life where I might have found a grungy, filthy bar the perfect place to be. (And I miss the Queen’s Head/Pimblett’s, the pub we did frequent, and its awesomely bizarre British decorating scheme, comfy couches, board games, and aging drag queens, whenever I go out anywhere else.) So, anyway, seafood or grungy bar stew – my first thoughts weren’t so promising.

However, as it turns out, the “Brunswick” in Brunswick stew actually is a reference to either Brunswick, Georgia or Brunswick, Virginia (which one appears to be a matter of controversy) and it’s a slow-cooked mess of various meats, beans, and corn (and perhaps other vegetables, depending on whose rules you’re following). This is a meal that I can totally get behind, even if my version probably offends the standards of authenticity. Salty-sweet-smoky-spicy is perhaps my favourite flavour combination in the world and oh, does this ever deliver.

Making it definitely presented some challenges, though.

The first difficulty I had is that, while we’re not exactly vegetarians in my family, we don’t eat a lot of meat, and the challenge recipe called for chicken, rabbit, and bacon. I generally avoid red meat entirely, and my brother won’t eat it at all (he’s a picky one), so the bacon was right out. Rabbit is pretty expensive, and the nearest hunters I know are some American relatives who live out West, so the meat was going to have to be some variety of domestic poultry. I ended up using about 2 pounds of chicken thighs because we had them on hand, and a smoked turkey leg as a smoky and salty alternative to bacon. I think a vegetarian version using lentils and mushrooms would be excellent too, and maybe someday I’ll try it with a whole chicken, but I did really enjoy the stew with the smoked turkey.

Second, my mom has a serious Thing about lima beans, and I couldn’t find butter beans. In fact, aside from the Fresh & Wild I lived near last year, which sold them in tiny and expensive little packets, I’ve never found them anywhere. I used navy beans instead, which we buy dried, cook in large batches, and freeze. It seemed like a good compromise.

Brunswick Stew, with a few adaptations (but here’s the original challenge recipe)

1 smoked turkey leg
2-3 lbs deboned chicken thighs, sprinkled with sea salt and pepper
3 dried morita peppers
8 cups stock; I used half chicken and half vegetable stock
2 Bay leaves
2 large celery stalks, roughly chopped
4 large potatoes, roughly chopped
5 small carrots, peeled and chopped
3 large onions, sliced
8 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 fresh green chilies, minced
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
2 cups cooked navy beans
1 28 oz can whole tomatoes
fresh lemon juice and a splash of red wine vinegar, to taste
Tabasco sauce to taste
sea salt, to taste

Note: I would dearly have loved to make this with fresh corn – and in five or six months, I absolutely will – but I refuse to buy imported corn on the cob, so I made do with frozen kernels.

Start by heating a bit of oil in a big stockpot, toast the dried peppers until they are lightly fragrant; transfer to a large bowl. Next, brown the chicken thighs on either side, then transfer them to the bowl with the toasted peppers; don’t crowd the chicken in the pot.

Pour a cup or so of stock into the pot to deglaze it. Bring it up to a boil to let the stock reduce by half; it will darken and smell delicious. At this point, add the remaining stock, and the celery, potatoes, bay leaves, chicken and chilies (and any liquid from the bowl they were resting in), and the turkey leg. You want the turkey leg and chicken to be covered by the stock. Bring the whole thing back up to a boil, then reduce the heat. Let it simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, fry up the onions and garlic and chilies in a cast-iron skillet until the onions are nicely soft and caramelized, but not burned.
I fried the onions up with some chilies and garlic before adding them to the stew because onions are so much tastier carmelized, and chilies and garlic make just about any savoury food better.

When the hour and a half is up, remove any big chicken pieces and the turkey leg from the pot; the chicken thighs I used pretty much shredded themselves without any help from me, but you’ll need to remove the turkey meat from the bone and shred it, and if you do have chunks of chicken remaining, you’ll want to shred them up too. Return the meat to the pot and add in the carrots. Let everything return to a simmer and stir occasionally. Cook for 25 minutes or so, until the carrots are tender.

Stir in the onions, garlic, and chilies, the navy beans, the corn, and the canned tomatoes. Crush up the tomatoes a bit. Let everything simmer together for half an hour or so. At the end of that time, add in the lemon juice, a splash of vinegar, and salt to taste; taste and adjust as necessary. It’ll be so thick that a spoon will stand up straight:

If you’re making dumplings to go along, now’s the time to make up the batter. After you’ve stirred in the vinegar and lemon juice, drop teaspoons of the batter in, cover the pot, and let the dumplings steam for 15 minutes or so; next time I do this, however, I’m going to transfer some of the stew to a casserole dish and steam the dumplings in the oven, because it took quite a while longer for them to cook on the stovetop.

Serve the stew with two or three dumplings, tabasco sauce, and a scoop of smothered cabbage on the side.

This is funny because this aversion goes back to daycare, where apparently they fed him dumplings that were so awful, the automatic aversion has persisted into his twenties. Personally, I don’t remember anything about daycare that well. It’s pretty amazing.

And I, unlike him, love dumplings. My mom used to make them when I was a kid – I think she called them “pound dogs”, or at least that’s how I remember things – and ever since I re-discovered them a few years ago, I’ve had an urge to make them every time I make soup or stew. (Okay, it’s always a toss-up between dumplings and biscuits and bread. But I always at least think about making dumplings.) I haven’t made Deb’s strawberries and dumplings yet, but I’m totally going to this summer, and I’m not sure I can wait.

In the meantime, it’s all about the cornmeal dumplings. These were the first ones I made – to go with an awesome (though insanely hot, if you use the full three quarters of a cup of chopped jalapenos) squash and tomato stew from Anna Thomas’ The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two. They’re still my favourites; they may look ugly here, but hey, it’s the flavour that counts.

Cornmeal Dumplings from The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup half & half or light cream or milk or buttermilk (or a mix of yoghurt and milk)
1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter

Sift together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. I often add some herbs or a few grinds of black pepper at this point; I used minced fresh chives in the last batch of dumplings I made.

Beat the egg and the cream together, then stir this into the dry ingredients; add the melted butter and continue stirring until the batter is smooth.

Drop the batter by the teaspoonfuls into simmering liquid, whether that be a soup or stew or heavily salted water. Cover and simmer for 14-15 minutes – though sometimes I find these need a bit longer to cook fully (probably ’cause I make ‘em too big), and if I’m using a pot that can go in the oven I like to steam them as per the recipe, then let them crisp up a bit on top under the broiler.

Some of this fascination might just be the allure of the unknown, too: after all, what does a girl of French-German-English-Irish extraction growing up in Toronto learn about Southern soul food? My mom’s cooking, happily, has always leaned away from the meat and potatoes and boiled-to-death peas, but we were  more likely to stir fry bok choy than to braise some collards – and everything I heard about collard greens seemed to involve ham bones. Soul food sounded like it should be simple and filling and delicious, but at the same time it seemed so out of reach. When it comes to actually eating, I’m not a vegan, or even a particularly devout vegetarian, unless chicken and fish and an occasional slice of bacon count as vegetables, but most of my cooking is vegetarian. I’ve certainly never cooked with a hambone in my life.

Then I got Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen for Christmas, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favourite cookbooks. Yes, one favourite among many, but it’s definitely one of the more distinctive books, with recipes that are simple and yet creative and fun and delicious. Terry isn’t preachy about the veganism; he’s simply written a book full of songs and stories and recipes for food that’s as good for your body as it is for your soul.

And of all the recipes I’ve tried so far, my favourite has been the smothered cabbage. Maybe this is just the natural result of the intersection of soul food and my Western European ancestry; I’m sure there’s no genetic basis for the love of cabbage, but there’s certainly a cultural one. And cabbage that’s been sort of braised and sort of sautéed and sort of steamed until it’s tender, caramelized, and deeply flavoured with mustard and a touch of hot pepper is just about as good as cabbage gets, in my opinion.

Recipe: Smothered Cabbage
From Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen

1/2 lb cabbage, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp black or brown mustard seeds
1 Tbsp raw sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt (or to taste – I use just a big pinch and add a little more at the end if necessary)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes (or more…)
5 Tbsp water
Freshly ground pepper (Terry says to use white pepper, but I use black)

Extras: Not that this dish needs any at all, but when I made it this time, I had a big pile of chives that were crying out to be used in something, and they were a great addition, stirred in about half-way through the cooking time.

1. Heat the olive oil and mustard seeds in a wide saucepan over medium-low heat until the seeds begin to pop. Add the sugar, salt, pepper flakes, and cabbage, and stir everything together for a few moments. Add the water, lower the heat slightly, and cover the pot.

2. Cook until the water is mostly evaporated and the cabbage is tender and slightly caramelized in appearance, stirring occasionally; about 20 to 30 minutes. I usually remove the lid for the last ten minutes or so of cooking time, and I’ve found this dish to be really forgiving if it’s cooked a bit longer, as long as the heat is low, which is great for something that you’ll probably be eating alongside another dish or two. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, and finish off the dish with a few grinds of pepper.

I’ve served this on top of polenta cakes, an idea I got from Vegan Soul Kitchen, and I’ve incorporated it into lentil salad, and I’ve brought it to potlucks. I’ve never failed to win compliments on it, even from people who (gasp) say that they normally don’t like cabbage.  And just to be cruel, I’ve done something with it that I can’t tell yet – but you’ll find out in a couple of weeks.

A tian is a tall, conical earthenware cooking vessel used in the Alpes-Maritimes area of France. Today, most of these vessels are produced in the town of Mougins. It is traditionally made from red clay and can be either glazed or unglazed. A modern tian can come lidded or not and sometimes has a looped handle on one side.

Apparently, the word has undergone a significant shift, though: the cranberry orange tian I made for the March Daring Bakers challenge is certainly very far removed from clay pots.

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I just barely managed to get this made in time for the posting date (i.e., I made it on the 27th). It’s been a stressful month: making a fussy dessert with multiple parts seemed crazy. But then I thought, well, I made marmalade in December, and I’ve got a lot of it left, so I feel like I’ve fulfilled the marmalade-making part of the challenge. Pâte sablée? I know my way around it. Whipped cream takes no time at all. It was only the fruit that was daunting; I just didn’t feel like hauling out to the grocery store for 5 additional oranges. And then I spotted the cranberries in the freezer, and I was all out of excuses – even if it took me a couple of days to muster the energy to write the post.

I did make only a half-portion of the caramel sauce and whipped cream, because there are only four of us here tonight and apparently leftover desserts are frowned on, but I made the full batch of pâte sablée and used the extra dough to make thumbprint cookies. Because thumbprint cookies are too cute. (I filled half of them with one or two of the caramel-soaked cranberries, and the other half with the strawberry-riesling jelly I made back in the fall; I must remember this use for it. The cranberry ones were good, but the jelly really shone.)

Recipes right here.