Cranberry Sauce au Caramel

So this Thanksgiving I got the job of whipping up the cranberry sauce, and all I knew is that I wanted it to be both solid and gelatinous above all, because, for whatever reason, cranberry sauce is the only canned product that I consider superior in its mass-manufactured state.

A bag of whole, unsweetened cranberries in my left hand, I browsed the pantry greedily with my right, happening fortuitously upon a bag of turbinado sugar and a bottle of Myer's Rum.  I suddenly had a vision of myself in the very near future pouring the bag of cranberries into a dark caramel, and that's precisely what I did.  Check it:


Dark Rum Caramel Cranberry Sauce

+ 24 oz/4 cups whole cranberries  + 16 oz/2 cups dark brown sugar  + 8 oz/1 cup water  + 4 oz/.5 cup dark rum  + 1 tp allspice  + 1 tp ground clove  + the juice of 2 limes  + pinch of sea salt

You'll need a good caramel pan, unlined copper is preferable.  Wipe the pan out with a lemon and make sure it is completely clean before you begin.  Have a brush and a small cup of water ready to wash down any sugar crystals that form on the sides of the pan.

Throw the

water
sugar
rum
allspice
clove

into the pan, turn the flame to medium, give it one good stir then DO NOT touch it.  Keep a close eye on it and wash the sides of the pan with the water and brush if you see any crystals forming.  (David Lebowitz offers some great tips for making caramel here.)  It will take about 15 minutes to turn a dark amber color and reach the proper viscosity.  THEN throw in the cranberries, lime juice and the pinch of salt, give it a bit of a stir, and basically allow it to cook on medium heat for another 20 minutes.  It will smell like heaven and the cranberries will burst and you'll wanna jump right in there.

Pour the cranberry sauce into a heatproof container with a lid and refrigerate it for a couple hours before you serve it if you really want that jellified canned texture.  Otherwise serve it warm for a less traditional and more dramatic presentation.

Japanese Egg Shapers: Mothering Made Easy

So I was browsing greedily at Sunrise Mart on the LES and I came upon a stroke of pure genius: Hard-boiled egg shapers! You take your hot hard-boiled egg, peel it, shove it into one of these handy heart/bunny/star/chick/car shapers, throw it in the fridge or a bowl of ice water for 10 minutes e voilà.  My daughter stopped begging me for peeps long enough to eat actual nutrition, holy %$#@.

From Japan With Love has quite a few for sale.

Gourmet Magazine's "Diary of a Foodie"

Lame name?  Oh sure.  But Gourmet Mag's Diary of a Foodie, a TV series dedicated to the art and science of food and produced for public television, is actually crammed full of interesting stories and information.  For instance, I never knew that Fergus Henderson (the guy who roasts pig heads at St. John in London) is actually afflicted by Parkinson's disease and until recently finding a successful treatment to control his own movements was unable to work in the kitchen at all.  There's also quite a creepy segment in which Harold McGee cooks mushrooms with this hippy-dippy natural perfumer and the two of them giggle like Japanese school girls at the fact that said mushrooms smell like "manure" (both of them are decidedly squeamish about the word "dung" or "crap") until they are heated to a certain temperature.  Anywho, after they cook these shit mushrooms they both then are then obliged to taste them, and they close their eyes and moan with each savory bite in the most uncomfortable fashion...Hilarious if you can manage to get a handle on your gag reflex.



I'm currently downloading all of the full-length episodes from iTunes (there are quite a few!) so I can watch them on my train commute.  I can only imagine what kind of facial expressions I shall share with my fellow commuters when the mushrooms start a' fryin'.

David Chang's Leftovers

While on break at work a few weeks ago I decided to flip through the November 2009 issue of Food & Wine while elbow-deep in my cold beef salad from Chelsea Thai.  Lo and behold David Chang and Christina Tosi from empire Momofuku were being challenged to take a mass of Thanksgiving leftovers and create day-after dishes with some measure of panache.  Here's the article.

I was particularly intrigued by the Mashed Potato Spring Rolls, in which David Chang rolls out white bread after cutting of the crusts, fills it with mashed potatoes and throws it in the deep fryer.  Now I fully admit to having a lifelong shiksa fascination with knishes, and it was that very fascination that was awakened by this rolled-white-bread-as-dumpling-wrapper idea.  I felt a deep need to incorporate this idea into my Christmas menu, which ironically enough was to be cooked in tandem with my Jewish neighbors.

I decided to make a few changes to the recipe.  Instead of doing a spring roll, I would fold the white bread in half and make triangles.  I omitted the green been entirely and made the filling with potato flakes, into which I microplaned half of a red onion and added olive oil and chopped fresh herbs.  It's particularly important with the white bread to seal each "knish" edge evenly with the egg wash in every nook and cranny possible.  I fried them in vegetable oil at 375°, but I would recommend getting the oil a bit hotter (say to 400°) so that the "knishes" won't absorb as much oil.

They were a hit at dinner with Jews and Gentiles alike and rolled white bread is definitely a welcomed new addition to my deep-fried goodie repertoire...