End-of-year experiments and exploits: a list.

In reverse chronology from December 31.

Ricotta cheesecake. Lighter and, well, more curdy--that is to say, less smooth--than your traditional cheesecake. More reminiscent of a custard. But: flecked with vanilla and lemon zest? Delectable, I say!

Red snapper crusted in salt. This preparation is becoming kind of a theme. I am now convinced that a superior salt-brushing tool is in order for any salt-crusted food, else that pursed-lip, too-much-salt-in-that-bite moment remains inevitable.

Gougeres. Basically, cheese puffs. Made from...pate a choux! Fun! Good for arm muscles! I fantasize about making a croquembouche someday. I really do.

Bagna cauda. This translates to: hot garlicky anchovy dip. Sounds like a frightening choice for a party, and it was. Still, pretty tasty with a spear of crisp celery and a hunk of good bread.

[Tangent]
I have this strange craving for anchovies lately. I was in NYC for a few days before Christmas and I went out for pizza and had a side of anchovies with my two slices. Ridiculously good.What I haven't dared to try (yet) are sardines. Fresh, they are amazing. But preserved? I don't know...
[End tangent]

Pork loin chops with wild mushrooms, rosemary, and white wine

Roasted parsnips and pear with thyme and honey. I suspect that if you went ahead and pureed the parsnips after roasting, it would make a killer soup. Garnishing the soup with a seared scallop, or maybe even a piece of seared foie gras, would be stratsospherically elegant. Anyone who dares to make foie gras at home, feel free to try this and report back.

Salted butter caramel ice cream. Overall, this was pretty amazing. Thank you, David Leibovitz! This is the first of his recipes I've tried and will certainly go back for seconds. I only had a few quibbles (resulting from my own foibles, though fortunately no combustibles were involved...):

• The praline was a little darker (tasted like burnt sugar: caramel cooks lickety-split!) and a little saltier than I would have liked, though the intensely sweet ice cream helped cut that.
  

• The ice cream was cavity-inducing sweet. One good tablespoon full is pretty much all I could stand. This is good, though, because that means it will last! In theory.

• The first serving was kind of gooey. At first I attributed this to the milk that gets added to the custard after cooking. A friend who also made it recently thought that the custard might have cooked for too long, making the caramel extra gooey. However, the second serving (coming after the ice cream had spent a night in the freezer) was pretty near perfect texture-wise. So, I guess M. Leibovitz's direction to chill the ice cream mix for eight hours or overnight before churning was given for good reason. Je suis chump.

Here is my attempt at documenting this gooey confection. The pictures on DL's website are better. I would definitely make this again (and try cutting the quantity of caramel for the custard by a third) and serve it with roasted pears or apples or a fruit crisp (barely sweetened!)



P.S. Do you want recipes? This year I want to start doing some more regular recipe writing and testing, so you can expect those sorts of posts down the pike, but should you want any mentioned here, let me know and I shall produce!

P.P.S. There was also much cooking over Christmas, but I'll save that for a later post. I have to figure out how to do jump cuts on this here blog of mine.

My favorite salad.

Bresola, sliced thin (proscuitto is nice too)

Big handful of arugula or mixed greens
Artichoke hearts and picholine olives, chopped rough
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Toss toss toss.

Pile greens on bresola, top with one more slice, add some curls of whatever hard italian cheese you like, and voila: delicious salad.

I made some noises earlier in the week about my birthday dinner. Quick recap: it turned out alright, but I don't really remember making all of it. Champagne kind of has that effect on me. In any case, I do remember that I did not brush enough of the salt off the salt-crusted pork tenderloin, which resulted in some intense dehydration the next day. Water never tasted so good! The greatest thing about this recipe, though, was the herbs in the salt. I used sage and I wasn't sure if the flavor would really come through, with all the salt. But it did, and it was quite savory. I seared the pork first, then sealed it up in its salty-sagey igloo and roasted it for about half an hour, along with some little yukon gold potatoes. The result? Fragrant, crusty on the outside, but lovely and juicy and chewy on the inside. Pork: good.

Also, the apple cake we made (thank you, Happy Luddite--sous chef extraordinaire!) was exactly what I wanted. Spicy, overloaded with apples, baked up into a rich, craggy brown crust. Fall in food form. I could have just had cake for dinner and been in heaven.

Oh, and the kohlrabi. Everybody go out and get some, right now. Roasted with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it is delicious. I think there's a good amount of sugar/starch in there because mine got a nice brown crust on it and tasted something like a potato, but lighter and sweeter, almost like a daikon. But it's not chunky or fibrous like a squash or other root vegetables--it gets very tender and velvety. No wonder it was so good in soup.

Tonight I'm going to make Marcella Hazan's bolognese and serve it up with some porcini pasta. It's rare that I eat pasta but yesterday I just kind of got the craving. Good blustery day food. I'm excited to see how the sauce turns out. It's a pretty traditional preparation, made with milk and nutmeg and a mix of ground meats, with tomatoes added almost as an afterthought. Definitely not the meat sauce I'm accustomed to making.

I'll also be making some more brussel sprouts, in an effort to counteract the calorie-laden meat/pasta/dairy trifecta. (But it's OK if I make the sprouts with pancetta, right? Cue arteries seizing.)

Stay tuned, faithful three readers....