Mmm . . . rosemary focaccia with rosemary from my own garden

Well, the New York Times has had some singularly uninteresting or unappetizing recipes lately, so I tried this one for focaccia from the Daily News. It's really easy, and it came out quite good. It freezes well too. Be sure to add enough salt. If you like Cosi bread, this comes pretty close.

I used packaged dry yeast rather than fresh. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever even seen fresh yeast in a store. Thanks to Brian for planting rosemary!

Summer braise, makes me feel fine . . .

Okay, what am I doing making two braised dishes in the middle of July? What is the New York Times doing publishing two braised dishes in the middle of July? Well, I made both. There haven't been any recipes that piqued my interest in this column for weeks, and I love stews and braises. I have never made lamb shanks or pork, so I actually tried these.

The first, Rice Pudding Pork, is pictured here. Isn't it somewhat unappetizingly beige? Although the meat is browned on the outside, it is beigey, with a beige sauce. I had always heard of this mythical Marcella Hazan dish, where the pork is braised in milk. This is similar, but with some herbs added. I don't get the appeal. I did not bother photographing the plated portions, as they were really quite unappetizing. This would have to be served with some various colored vegetables, which I hadn't bothered to make. I made some really delicious corn, which is detailed below.

The pork smelled really good while cooking, kind of bacony with the herby overtone (thyme and bay leaves). It tastes just okay. This cut of pork is a little dry--a pork shoulder is so much better, I think. We had a lot left over, which I froze. I may use it for sandwiches, and probably much of it may get discarded. Apparently it may make a difference if you cook this in a casserole that more closely resembles the shape of the roast. Well, I don't have one of those oval-shaped Dutch ovens, and I'm not about to go buy one.

I made the lamb shanks too, which I forgot to photograph. They taste really good. I got a very good sear on them first.

Now for the real find of the weekend: I had read about a wonderful corn pudding in the latest issue of Saveur. This dish is splendid--just corn, salt and butter. Super sweet, with no sugar added. The author reminisces about her childhood making this dish, so it qualifies for inclusion here in the category of memory recipes. It is fantastic--like eating roasted corn on the cob without having to get corn stuck in your teeth! The author seems to feel it is very important to get a very broken-up feeling to the corn, but the photo didn't look that mushy. Instead of using the corn cutter she specified, I cut the corn off the ears with a knife and then pulsed the corn in the food processor a bit, so it was somewhat broken up. I used 9 ears instead of the 12 specified to serve 4. Two of us devoured it.

Chicken Mar-feh-ya

I can finally blog about a recipe without having to turn on the oven! I didn't like this recipe twenty years ago.

This weekend the Times published a tribute to the old Silver Palate Cookbook on its twenty-fifth anniversary. They featured one of the top old recipes: Chicken Marbella. Yes, I had this cookbook twenty-odd years ago. No, I have not looked at it in years, and it's in a storage unit. I never had much use for this book, and I never liked its ugly design. Most of all, I never liked that recipe for Chicken Marbella! I made it a couple of times in the eighties and gave up. It always had too much of a vinegary taste and the chicken had an unpleasant slimy consistency. It never had an appetizing roasted taste or texture, and it never got brown. The only thing good about it was the prunes. Marinating the prunes and stewing them created a delicious flavor. While I suppose there are different things you could do to tinker with this recipe, I never thought it was worth the trouble.

In the end, I tried it again recently, as you can see above. I took out the vinegar and didn't bother with capers. It is better with chicken breasts than dark meat. The prunes, once again, are the best part. The chicken needs to be browned first, unlike the original recipe. It also really needs to be coooked sufficiently. The original recipe time is not long enough. This is just not really worth making.

Brownies Part Deux

Last night I made the "Supernatural Brownies" from the same article I tested yesterday. The recipe recommended making these a day ahead for best results.
These could not be more different from the gooey brownies from the day before. This is the kind of brownie I really like--halfway between a cookie and a cake. I used Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate. I did not use "artisinal" sugar (puh-leeze), but just Domino dark brown sugar. If someone else wants to do a side-by-side comparison of these brownies made with two sugars, I'd be interested in the results, but I can't be bothered.

The edges came out too well done, and I trimmed them off before presenting this to the office testers, but they are edible (if a little too dry).

Brownies on ice

This morning, I take a departure from my weekend testing to report on a Wednesday food section recipe. This morning the Times published a
dissertation on chocolate

and this companion piece by Julia Moskin with three recipes.

Like Moskin, I don't swoon over "death by chocolate" desserts. I'd rather have rice pudding, a cream puff from Beard Papa's or a sfogliatelle.* But I'm game to try these. Since one of the recipes takes only 20 minutes to bake, I decided to try it on the spur of the moment.

The recipe calls for placing the baked brownies in an ice bath to cool, producing a "slump" in the middle and a fudgy texture. You can see from the picture that the center did indeed slump. I'm not really a fan of a fudgy texture, but the people in my office are, and I'll bring it for them to try. Tomorrow, I intend to try the "Supernatural" brownie recipe, which actually sounds better to me. The article is about how you should be using higher-end chocolate for baking, and I used Scharffen Berger.

Now that I have tasted these, I think they are a bit too gooey. They taste good, though. I liked the part near the edges, which isn't as gooey. Also, the brownies stuck to the foil. I wonder if the foil shouldn't have been buttered.
*Exception: I do like Choco Leibniz cookies in dark chocolate.

Recipe test: New York Times Magazine 3/24/07 Amanda Hesser article on the Giant Pancake

Everyone knows I love to make popovers, so I wanted to try these two popover-related recipes from this week's Times. I have not tried the large pancake yet, but I tried the Moroccan chicken dumplings, because I had some leftover rotisserie chicken to use. I had all the ingredients on hand except saffron, and I added a bit of chopped dried apricot to the chicken mix. (Okay, I didn't have harissa sauce, but I used some Thai chili sauce and some hot red sauce from the taco truck on 96th Street.) Overall, this is not bad, but it's a little lacking in something. The dumplings had to cook longer than the recipe said, but it may be my oven. They came out of the muffin tin very easily without sticking. I'm not sure why this recipe calls for spraying the pans with vegetable spray and then adding butter. Wouldn't the butter alone have been sufficient? This is possibly a little too greasy. (The reason they tell you to put a sheet pan under the muffin tin is that the butter bubbles up and pours over the edge.) As with many of these middle eastern dishes with cinnamon in them, this one ends up tasting a little too dessert-y. I would try this again with the saffron just for the heck of it, though. It's a good way to use up leftover chicken.