Creamy

I’m a sucker for anything creamy. Trouble is, most creamy things have cream. And possibly eggs. And lots of sugar. But not Homemade Yogurt. Homemade Yogurt is health food, not dessert, so I can eat it all I want.

Homemade Yogurt
Printable Recipe

1 ½ quarts whole or 2% milk
¼ cup plain yogurt with live active cultures

Gently heat the milk to 180ºF. Let cool to 115ºF. Whisk in the yogurt. Divide the mixture among the yogurt machine jars, cover, and culture in the yogurt machine for 5 to 6 hours, or until thickened.


Refrigerate.

Makes 8 servings. Scalding the milk will eliminate any existing bacteria that might compete with the yogurt culture and ruin the yogurt. To cool the milk quickly, use an ice bath. Yogurt keeps refrigerated for a week or two. Reserve a portion of this batch of yogurt to use as starter for the next batch. Serve with a spoonful of honey or jam. Also fantastic with Granola with Almonds & Cherries.

Bibimbap

I am in a state of deep depression. My favorite Korean restaurant has closed for good. It’s been a couple of months since I learned the terrible news, and I still can’t quite come to terms with it. It was a humble, tiny place hidden away in the back of a Korean market.

They served home-style food loaded with spicy chiles. We liked everything on the menu, especially the bibimbap. Bibimbap, as fun to say as it is to eat, is a dish of sticky rice topped with a variety of colorful vegetables, egg, and seasoned meat. My absolute favorite was the dolsot bibimbap, which arrived to the table in a super-hot stone bowl and would continue to sizzle for many minutes. The heat of the bowl was so intense that it would crisp the bottom layer of rice and cook the runny yolk of the sunny-side-up egg. Many layers of clothing would be stripped off during the course of a meal. They served the bibimbap with an endless variety of side dishes, including kimchee, of course, and a bowl of mild broth.

Bibimbap withdrawal is a terrible thing, but it led to the creation of the following recipe.

Dolsot Bibimbap
Printable Recipe

¼ cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon grated ginger
¼ cup sliced green onions
1 ¼ pounds thinly sliced boneless beef short ribs, julienned
Freshly ground black pepper
3 cups sticky rice
Kosher salt
4 dried shiitake mushrooms
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
4 eggs
3 tablespoons dark sesame oil
1 medium zucchini, cut in half lengthwise, thinly sliced on a bias, and blanched
1 carrot, julienned and blanched
8 ounces mung bean sprouts, blanched
8 ounces spinach, bok choy, choy sum, or other similar leafy greens, coarsely chopped and blanched
½ cup shredded nori
Gochujang, for serving

Heat 4 Korean stone bowls in a 425ºF oven.

Combine the soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, and green onions in a medium bowl. Add the beef and stir to coat. Season to taste with pepper and marinate for about half an hour.

Combine the rice, 1 quart water, and a generous pinch of salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook without disturbing for 19 to 21 minutes, or until the rice is tender and all of the liquid has been absorbed.

Combine the shiitakes and ½ cup hot water in a small bowl and let soak for 10 to 12 minutes, or until rehydrated and pliable. Remove the shiitakes to a cutting board, trim off and discard the stems, and thinly slice the caps.

Heat a wok over high heat until very hot but not smoking. Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and swirl to coat the bottom of the wok. Add half of the beef mixture and stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes, or until just cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Cook the remaining beef in the same manner. Stir in the sesame seeds.

Cook the eggs sunny side up with the remaining tablespoon of vegetable oil in a nonstick pan.

Carefully transfer the stone bowls from the oven to trivets. Using a heatproof brush, coat each bowl with 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil. Immediately divide the rice among the bowls. Arrange the zucchini, carrot, bean sprouts, greens, shiitakes, beef mixture, and eggs decoratively atop the rice. Drizzle with the remaining teaspoon of sesame oil, top with the nori, and serve immediately. Pass a small bowl of gochujang on the side.

Serves 4. Of course bibimbap can be served in regular rice bowls—although the rice won’t have the golden crunchy crust, it will still be tasty and delicious. (Do not coat regular rice bowls with sesame oil.) Any thinly sliced beef steak can be substituted for the short ribs. Gochujang is fermented sweet chile paste. Stone bowls with matching trivets, thinly sliced boneless beef short ribs, and gochujang are all available in Korean markets.


Add as much chile paste as you like, stir it all together, and dig in.

Worthy

Last summer, we went to France. We ate our way through Paris, Lyon, the Camargue, and then western Provence. The final stop of our whirlwind tour was Chateauneuf du Pape. Our luggage was already too heavy with “souvenirs”, but we found room for a bottle of Domaine des Pères de L’Église Le Calice de Saint Pierre Heritage 2004. Bold and luscious, it tasted of blueberries and black currants.

When we got home, we put the bottle in the wine rack, and there it waited patiently for a special occasion. Until one day my husband said, “All I want for my birthday is a meal worthy of that wine.” A challenge.

The wine would be perfect with duck breasts. He didn’t want duck breasts. What about duck confit? He didn’t want duck confit. The negotiations continued for several weeks until two things were settled. The main course would be lamb, and we would have a salad with chicken gizzard confit, like the one we had in Arles. And there was a demand for a real dessert, birthday cake alone would not do.

How, how to fill out the menu? I agonized over this many days. I wanted it to be special, and I wanted it to be a surprise.

Finally it was time to open the wine.

For the first course, I put together a cheese plate. I selected Tomme de Savoie, Fleur d’Aunis, Lagioule, and Le Chevrot. After an exhaustive search, I managed to find an authentic saucisson sec, the dry cured pork sausage that’s ubiquitous in France, but frustratingly rare here, and his absolute favorite when we were traveling. Some niçoise and picholine olives, red grapes, and a baguette rounded it out.

Then came the aforementioned salad, rich and delicious.


For the main course, I marinated lamb ribs chops in olive oil, garlic, and herbes de Provence and grilled them medium-rare. For a side dish, I threw some hot Camargue red rice together with a bit of garlic, a couple of herbs from the garden, a drizzle of olive oil from Provence, and, because it was there, a spoonful of melted duck fat from the gizzard confit.


I made chocolate pot de crème for dessert.

The weather was beautiful, so we ate in the herb garden. The meal lasted for hours. In between courses we massaged our bellies. For that one evening, we were back in the French countryside, and everything was divine, worthy. Especially the rice, it was nutty and flavorful and crunchy. Of the entire meal, the rice was the best part.

The rice was the best part!

The rice was almost an afterthought! We went all the way to the Camargue and didn’t even bring any rice back with us. The windswept Camargue, with its marshes and flamingoes and swans and white horses and wild black bulls is famous for its rice and its sea salt. (In fact, Fleur de Sel de Camargue is one of my favorites, and we went all the way there just so I could see where it comes from.) But by the time we got there, I had already picked up two crêpe pans, two blini pans, a copper sugar pot, and forty tartlet molds, and guess who was carrying it all? I certainly couldn’t ask him to add a bag of rice to that load. It was only by chance that, several months after our trip, I stumbled upon a small bag of Camargue red rice at a discount store. I picked it up, figuring I better not miss my chance a second time.

Since that worthy birthday dinner, I’ve spread the word about the Camargue red rice. A few have managed to acquire some, and now they want my recipe.


Camargue Red Rice with Garlic & Herbs
Printable Recipe

1 cup Camargue red rice
2 quarts water
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, preferably from Provence
2 tablespoons rendered duck fat, melted
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon minced fresh thyme
2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley
Fleur de Sel de Camargue
Freshly ground black pepper

Combine the rice, water, and a generous pinch of kosher salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the rice is tender. Drain. Stir in the oil, duck fat, garlic, thyme, and parsley. Season to taste with fleur de sel and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a side dish. Look for Camargue red rice online. If you cannot find Camargue red rice, use any other variety of red rice that’s available. If you don’t have any duck fat, find some. If you can’t find some, look harder, you’ll be glad you did. If you still can’t find some, I suppose you can use unsalted butter.

Pastry Board

I love my pastry board, it’s beautiful. Michelangelo’s David and my pastry board are both made of Carrara marble. But my pastry board is functional, too.

I got my pastry board custom made. The ones they sell at cookware shops are just too small to work on comfortably. A marble fabricator made mine for me from a remnant, for cheap.

My pastry board is about two by three feet, plenty big for rolling out dough. And it stays cool on hot days, keeping even the most delicate pastry doughs chilled and workable.

I use my pastry board for making pasta, breads, tarts, and these apple galettes.

Apple Galettes with Hazelnut Crust
Printable Recipe

1/3 cup hazelnuts
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
½ teaspoon kosher salt
13 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks plus 1 tablespoon) cold unsalted butter, diced
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons, or more, cold water
2 tablespoons Turbinado sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
4 Golden Delicious apples
1 tablespoon heavy cream

Combine the hazelnuts and sugar in a food processor and pulse until finely ground.


Add the flour and salt and pulse a few more times to combine. Add 12 tablespoons of the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.


Add the water and pulse until the dough just comes together.


Test the dough by squeezing a small amount together with your fingertips. If the dough holds together, it’s ready. If it’s crumbly, add up to 1 more tablespoon of water and pulse 2 more times. Transfer the dough to a work surface, bring together into a ball, and cut into eighths. Form each portion into a ball and then flatten into a disc. Wrap each disc separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each disc of dough to a 7-inch wide, 1/8-inch thick circle.


As you work, transfer the circles to parchment-lined baking trays. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the Turbinado sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Peel, halve, and core the apples and slice them 3/16-inch thick.


Using half an apple for each galette, arrange the apple slices in a decorative pattern in the center of each dough circle, leaving a 1-inch border at the edge.


Fold the edge of the dough over the apples, pleating it as you go.


Refrigerate for another 10 minutes.

Lightly brush the galette crusts with the cream. Sprinkle the galettes with the Turbinado sugar mixture and dot with the remaining tablespoon of butter. Bake for 17 to 19 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 8 individual galettes. Work quickly and with a light touch to prevent the butter in the pastry from melting. Feel free to substitute almonds or pecans for the hazelnuts or ripe but still firm peaches for the apples. So many possibilities! Serve warm, perhaps with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.