Ricotta Pancakes

 When I saw this on a friend's page recently, I was intrigued:

I have been honing my approach to Deborah Madison's pancake recipe for close to two decades and had dedicated a page on my faculty web site to it before we began this blog. 

Ina Garten's recipe is at first notable for the very forward use of lemon and fig, but her approach is also different in the fundamentals: half of the liquid portion is ricotta and a fifth of the dry portion is corn starch. I was intrigued and decided to give this a try, in part because we had some ricotta on hand. 

The video itself does not provide enough detail to make this recipe work; when I tried to follow links associated with it, I was invited to download an app. Since I do not cook from my phone, I was at a bit of a loss, until the same friend who posted the video sent me the link to the full recipe -- from the app.

In fact, we had most of the ingredients except the figs and lemon on hand, but we had lemon juice. We also did not have buttermilk, but Deborah Madison teaches us that milk with a splash of lemon juice is a good substitute, after being allowed to rest for 10 minutes. Since I never drink buttermilk, I almost never buy it, always using this trick. In this case, I just used more than the usual lemon juice.

In place of figs, I chopped up a couple of small apples we had on hand, scattering them on top of the pancakes as in the video, rather than mixing them in the batter as I usually do. Incidentally, I usually do not peel apples before cooking with them -- it is easier to leave the skin on, and gives them an agreeable texture.

The batter had a distinctive texture -- almost spongy -- and the pancakes were as fluffy as they were delicious. I am glad that I did take time in the afternoon to buy some maple syrup at our local neighborhood farmstand. We had put it off for quite a while, and it was great to have the good stuff for these delicious, breakfast-for-dinner pancakes! 

I rarely find figs in the wild (or supermarket), though I did take care of a fig tree for a rich family in Baltimore during my landscaping days. When I next encounter them (hint to local friends who might know a source), I will revisit this recipe.

Image (complete with figs): Food Network

Zucchini Frittata

 During the Thanksgiving weekend two different friends each gifted us with a dozen eggs. In addition we received our usual 18 eggs with our weekly dairy delivery from Crescent Ridge Farm so we set out to make some egg-based dinners. First up was was our annual post-Thanksgiving sweet potato and turkey hash topped with fried eggs. Last night's recipe for zucchini frittata came from Jane Brody's Good Food Book (which has an entire section devoted to egg-based main courses). I chose this one because I had some shredded zucchini in my freezer from this summer's harvest from my garden. I also had all the other ingredients I needed on hand.

I started by mincing two garlic cloves (also from my garden) and chopping one onion. I sauteéd these in a lot of butter for about a minute in my indispensable cast-iron skillet and then added the thawed and drained zucchini. Next I beat six eggs to which I also added a bit of whipping cream, dried basil (also from my garden) and some shredded parmesan cheese, and added the mixture into the skillet. I cooked over a medium heat until the eggs began to set, at which point I added some more parmesan cheese to the top and moved the skillet to the oven which I set on broil. Once the top was nicely browned and puffy I removed it and let sit for two minutes before serving.

This was easy, flavorful, and had a lot of texture.

Two Thanksgiving desserts

A Covid Thanksgiving

Our usual Thanksgiving tradition involves dinner with friends. Typically three families get together, with occasional additions. Most years we arrive around noon and begin cooking and drinking wine until dinner is ready at 3:00 or 4:00. After our meal we take a walk and then have our dessert - a selection of pies, cakes and other delectables. This year we maintained our tradition with a much scaled-back version. It rained all day on Thursday, so we moved our celebration to Friday when the weather was better and we could eat outside. It was about 60 degrees out - let's hear it for global warming - so it was actually a nice day dining al fresco. Rather than spending the entire day together James showed up at our hosts' home with the turkey in the morning and he and Rob got it started on the grill, then James came back home and prepared the dressing and we went returned at 3:00 with our offerings.  I had planned on making some cranberry sauce but Lisa said they already had three different kinds, so I made two desserts instead. 

Just like the lunch lady used to make

Growing up and attending public school in Baltimore County in the 1970s I usually wasn't thrilled with the hot lunch offered in our cafeteria, and opted instead to bring my lunch. Exceptions to that rule were pizza day and open-faced turkey sandwich day. In the case of the turkey it wasn't so much the main course that I was interested in as the dessert that came with it - "peanut butter confection". 

I've often thought about how much I liked that crumbly, sweet dessert and it seemed this year was a good time to try to find a recipe (and, after all, we were having turkey). On a bag of confectioners sugar I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge that seemed like it might allow me to create reasonable facsimile of what I remembered. It was a simple recipe with only four ingredients (confectioners sugar, milk, marshmallow fluff, and peanut butter) and I did end up with a super sweet '70s treat that was exactly as I remembered.

Is it cake or pie?

My second dessert came from the New York Times cooking page. I told our hosts that I would bring pumpkin pie, but this recipe is called "Pumpkin Skillet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting" It has no crust, and is made with flour, so it probably is more of a cake than a pie. Nevertheless it was delicious and baked right in our indispensable cast-iron skillet.

This year there were only six of us enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner together. Here's hoping that next year we will be able to return to our usual festivities with everyone in good health.

Old Bay - it's not just for seafood!

Hayes-Boh Joint Dinner Production

James: Pam recently found a recipe -- courtesy of our hometown global spice company -- for Old Bay Roasted Pork Tenderloin. The use of Old Bay in the preparation of crabs is Baltimore gospel, and Marylanders such as my brother apply it liberally to chicken. A quick search of this blog shows how we have employed it in various poultry and seafood dishes.

It seems quite natural to use it on pork, but I don't think I had tried that. I had also not combined it with brown sugar, though I do include brown sugar in many of the spicy rubs I make. 

In this case, I followed the recipe as written, except that I used the Big Green Egg and I attempted to adjust the timing to account for the fact that the cut of pork we get from Crescent Ridge is 3 pounds instead of the 1 pound in the recipe. I extended the time to a bit over an hour, and adding the vegetables after the pork had been cooking for about 10 minutes, rather than the reverse.

This turned out very well, though I could have done better with the timing. The vegetables would have been even better with a bit more time, and the pork would have been more succulent with just a bit less time. 

Pam: It turns out that it was also National Cranberry Relish day. 

We had some whole cranberries that we intended to save for Thanksgiving, but in coordinating with our fellow celebrants I discovered that they had an abundance of cranberries (and cranberry sauce) so it wasn't going to be necessary for me to bring any on Thursday. I offered to make two desserts instead and then set about finding a recipe worthy of National Cranberry Relish day. New York Times Cooking page to the rescue. This simple recipe for Spiked Cranberry Relish was quick, and I had all the ingredients I needed already at our beach house (where we usually have our Sunday dinners). I did make two substitutions:  Triple Sec instead of Grand Mariner and chopped walnuts instead of pecans. 

A delicious and visually pleasing meal all around.

Lagniappe

(by James) Although I have not combined sugar and Old Bay before, I have had it as part of a sweet treat. I was at a table overlooking Baltimore's Inner Harbor -- complete with the Domino's Sugar sign -- at the time. After visiting the remarkable Frederick Douglass maritime museum that is located in his former waterfront workplace, I had a quick bite downstairs at the delightful Ampersea restaurant. By "bite" I mean a sip of whiskey that had been distilled nearby and a dessert that one could only imagine being served in such a location: Old Bay crème brûlée. Highly recommend!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I don't think I've ever made tortilla soup from scratch before. James and I have occasionally made it from a kit, but in reviewing our shelf of recipe books while looking for a recipe for some chicken breasts I noticed our seldom used The Daily Soup Cookbook where I discovered the tortilla soup recipe. 

Before getting to the recipe, which I only used as a suggestion, it is important for me to discuss our history with tortilla soup. We usually only enjoy this when we eat at Mexican restaurants - something we have not done at all since before the pandemic. Each time we have some of this soup we remince about the first and second times we ever ate it. The first time we couldn't believe our good fortune in finding a restaurant that made such an exquisite soup. The second time we couldn't believe how the soup could have been so thoroughly ruined (too much salt and burned tortillas).

Both times were during our first trip to Mexico in 1989. Both were also at the same restaurant about two weeks apart. 

As I said, I used the recipe only as a guide for what I ultimately made. Which was way better than either the first or second tortilla soups I tried.

I started with making a vegetable broth by simmering some whole peppercorns, whole coriander seeds, chopped onion, garlic, chopped celery, and some canned diced tomatoes in water. Once the stock was made and strained I prepared the soup by frying a chopped onion and three cloves of chopped garlic in Chipotle-infused olive oil (from L.O.V.E. Emporium). I added some dried oregano, fresh cilantro leaves, and some salt, some canned diced tomatoes, six cups of stock, and some fresh lime juice and simmered for 30 minutes. Finally I added the poached and diced chicken breasts. Once everything was cooked I placed broken up commercial tortilla chips into soup bowls and added the soup on top. This was served with shredded cheddar cheese topping and fresh cilantro garnish.

We had enough for leftovers so I made a change to the second-day offering by adding some frozen corn kernels before reheating.

Of course this would have been even better had I included avocado slices when serving, but alas we had none.

FTE Kibbeh

 Note to higher-ed colleagues: by FTE I mean First Time Ever, not Full-time Equivalent

I have seen a few comments recently about food blogs, suggesting (strongly) that bloggers should skip the context-setting stories and go right to the cooking instructions. Regular readers will know that for me there is always a story, and often a complicated one, on the way to the recipe. And often there is a bit of an additional story following the food. For my very first kibbeh, this is going to be even more true than usual.

The story begins long ago and far away, with two friends who operate a restaurant in London and who had lived parallel lives in Jerusalem long before they met. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi grew up on opposite sides of the Jewish/Palestinian divide in that most divided of cities, yet as adults were connected as friends and professionals by food. For them, the cuisine of Jerusalem is one of connection, not isolation, and so they came to write Jerusalem: A Cookbook, whose simple title belies the richness of its flavors, images, and ... stories.

I know that I learned of the book from an interview on public radio, but I am not sure which one. A quick search of NPR reveals more than a dozen possibilities, mostly on a program (Salt) that is not familiar to me. So I believe it was Yotam Ottolenghi's 2015 discussion of food and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Robin Young that got my attention. (Writing paused while I listen again.)

In addition to the Robin Young interview, I recommend the Good Reads review by user Petra-X as an introduction to this popular volume. I also recommend the review by user Carol Smith. As Robin Young mentions, many people have become Jerusalem completists who cook, eat, and/or blog their way through the entire volume. Although Smith has not done that so far, she does include reviews (and photos) of many specific recipes. She has a personal policy of not posting a review of a cookbook until she can post 10 recipe reviews. In the spirit of this Nueva Receta blog, she avers that a cookbook should be removed from the shelf if the owner does not prepare at least 10 dishes from it.

All of this was in the back of my mind last week, when I realized I would have a couple of days without a lot of Zooming scheduled, and that I could reward myself by tackling a new recipe. I thumbed through Jerusalem, looking for only a modest challenge. I found it on page 160 in a recipe for "open kibbeh," described as a very nontraditional variation on kibbeh itself. True to form for Ottolenghi and co-author Sami Tamimi, the recipe is preceded by a full page entitled "The capital of kibbeh" that describes this food as a perfect exemplar of a food that crosses boundaries. I learned that I am far from alone in not knowing what kibbeh actually is -- or in being uncertain about its spelling: kibbeh, kubbbeh, and kobeba are offered as options.

The open kebbeh is a dramatic departure in form, as traditional kibbeh is a deep-fried ball of ground meat, bulgur wheat, and spices, and this was to be a pie made with similar ingredients. The recipe calls for a springform pan, but ours was in the wrong house, and I decided that since the ancient Israelites had no springform pans, I could do without one as well. Of course, they would not have made this as a pie, but still ... I oiled one of our indispensable cast-iron pans and got to work preparing the bottom crust. 

This was the simplest of crusts -- I soaked one cup of fine bulger in one cup of water while I prepared the rest of the dish. I mixed in a little salt, pepper, white flour and water and then pressed this thin dough into the bottom of the pan. Because it was a little wet, I actually put it in the oven (400F) for a few minutes before adding the meat mixture.

The recipe calls for lamb, but I used free-range ground turkey from Vermont that was delivered by our local dairy. I cooked onions, garlic and a hot pepper in olive oil until very soft -- in another indispensable cast-iron skillet, of course -- and then removed them to a bowl so that I could brown the turkey in the same pan. I then returned the aromatics to the pan and added pine nuts, cinnamon, coriander, allspice (except I did not really, because again, wrong house), and cilantro. Once this was nicely melded, I spooned it onto the crust and baked for 20 minutes.

While it was baking, I whisked together tahini paste, water, and lemon juice to make a thin sauce that is a sesame equivalent of almond butter. I had never cooked with tahini sauce, and in fact had done an image search before shopping so that I would have a better chance of finding it at the local grocery -- this proved to be an essential, step, as it was fairly well hidden. I removed the kibbeh from the oven and smoothed the sauce over top. I sprinkled it with more pine nuts and parsley and baked for another 12 minutes. I then turned the heat down to keep the dish warm until Pam was ready to join me for dinner. 

Open Kibbeh

We pronounced the result to be as delicious as it was nutritious. I look forward to cooking more. I was reminded of the excellent food we enjoyed in Jordan while visiting our partner university at Tafila -- well within the realm of Jerusalem's influence -- during our brief 2017 visit. In just a few days, the emphasis on healthy oils, lean meats, and grains had left me feeling as vigorous as our hosts were generous and amiable.

Coincidences 

It turns out that I prepared this dish on a rather ignoble day for the region from which it comes to us. During the last gasps of his term as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo visited the West Bank with a disruptive mission. He became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit one of the contentious -- and internationally scorned -- settlement, where he was feted with wine bearing his name on the label, to celebrate his role in providing cover for the illegal occupation of the land from which it was produced.

This visit was in stark contrast with the work my geography students were doing, as they studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of The Lemon Tree, a novel based on a true story of friendship across that bitter divide. Although the book was published in 2007 and I started using it in my teaching in 2012 -- when the author visited our campus -- I continue to assign it every semester because at this point in the semester I start to receive the student papers, and invariably some of the students actually thank me for assigning it. In a similar vein, I recommend the story of Assel Street in East Jerusalem.

Lagniappe

I cannot think of kibbeh without thinking of my late friend Khalil, who introduced me to it -- in the Brazilian Amazon of all places. During my first visit to Rondônia in 1996 -- and my only extended stay so far -- I frequently visited his family. His wife was a professor in the Department of Letters that was my academic home, and they lived near the house where I rented a room from one of the other professors. 

Our visits involved learning to dance with the three generations of fabulous dancers in that family, and learning about food from Khalil. He did not dance, but he cooked. He had come to Brazil from Lebanon in a prior generation, and was a sometime Middle Eastern grocer. He delighted in making me kibbe (see - yet another spelling) and other dishes from the Levant; and he knew that inviting me to prepare food would be a way for me not just to return the favor, but to share something of myself. I still remember the discussion as we planned a dinner of spaghetti and chicken -- which ultimately made me a minor celebrity for a while. I had not yet cooked or been to a proper grocery store, and had no idea what I would be able to find. One by one, I asked about ingredients I had not seen anybody use during my stay. In answer to each one, he would nod solemnly and proclaim, "têm" -- "they have it" -- stretching the short word to almost three syllables. 

At Casa Hayes-Boh, that is how we declare the availability of ingredients to this day: têm!

Lemony Chicken with Extra Lemon

PROGRAM NOTE: This will be the 601st post on Nueva Receta, which has had 123,083 views as of this writing.  Thanks to everyone for joining us in the ongoing adventure of cooking at home! And if you have not already done so, please read the origin story of this blog, in honor of the late Dr. Bob Phillips.

I picked up some extra chicken during the weekly grocery run. Even though Pam was making chilaquiles on Tuesday, I decided that it would give me a good possibility for a nueva receta later in the week. I checked only one book -- Dishing Up Maryland -- but I did not find anything I had not already tried that would not require returning to the grocery store. (We're still on Covid-19 precautions, so I really try to limit grocery shopping to once per week.)

Being too lazy to return to the cookbook cupboard, I turned to the New York Times, where I found Lemon Chicken by Paul Mones. The byline mentions that it is adapted from a recipe by Nicole Mones, suggesting that this is another couple that cooks and writes together.

Speaking of cooking together, Pamela noticed that yesterday was National Men Make Dinner Day, one of those concepts that sounds egalitarian and sexist and heteronormative all at the same time. The web supports our misgivings by using a Mad Men-era icon of a man sipping coffee as part of the page banner. We decided to play along anyway; I even put on an apron for photographic evidence that I know how to use a kitchen.

I followed the recipe mostly as written, but using our indispensable cast-iron skillet since we gave away our wok between grad-school moves decades ago. 

One departure from the recipe is that I used regular wheat flour instead of potato flour for two reasons: first, to avoid returning to the grocery store and second, because the reader comments below the recipe exhibited a lot of disagreement about how the flour was to be used, or whether its use is intended at all -- with something called potato starch offered as an alternative by one reader.

I am not sure how potato flour would have been different, but the egg-flour mix was essentially paste, even after I added about a half cup of milk to it. This was very different from any egg bath I have used before, but I do think that it worked well. Readers of the recipe will note that the chicken itself calls for no lemon -- it appears only in the sauce, which is essentially a lemonade reduced with cornstarch. 

As a lover of all things lemon, I decided the recipe could use an enhancement: lemon-infused olive oil that we recently received from our friends at L.O.V.E. in Frederick, Maryland. I also used the oil in preparing brown rice as a side.

The result was delicious comfort food during an angst-ridden election week in which comfort was sorely needed.

This is a photo of what mine did not look like:

Photo: Dwight Eschliman NYT with Food Stylist Kevin Crafts