hamentaschen

I made some hamentaschen as my contribution to a dinner party at the neighbor's place. Never done that before; definitely qualified as a learning experience, and I can honestly say that my cookie/biscuit knowledge has increased as a result.

Chow.com had a recipe for nutella hamentaschen. I'm partial to the poppy ones, myself, but I had a jar of nutella sitting around and thought this might be a good use for it - it's a more lofty-sounding goal than "eating the nutella with a spoon".  I didn't have any margarine, so instead of going with that recipe, I used this one, with a slight change.


Yields: depends on how big the circles are. I got about 20, minus dough snitching.

• 225 g butter
• 110 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. Vanilla, 1 tsp almond extract
• 500 g flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder

Cream butter, sugar, and eggs together. Add in vanilla and almond. Sift flour and baking powder, add to wet ingredients, working in thoroughly. Roll out, add filling and bake in preheated oven at 190C until sides are starting to brown.

chopping the almonds

...and the apricots

dough's looking pretty good here

first one! 

Nutella rolled in almonds - what's not to like?

Initial efforts - note the overfilled apricot one on the upper left

Uhoh. Some slumping has occured.

why aren't they triangles?

Alright! What did we learn? Well, chilled dough is really important to ensuring that the hamentaschen don't slump out of their triangular shape; a coffee cup works well as an ersatz cookie cutter; a wine bottle  makes a half-decent rolling pin; and folding the rounds into triangles, with the sides overlapping rather than pinched, is key.

The fillings were: Nutella rolled in almonds, and apricots with plum jam. In doing a bit of research on hamentaschen techniques, one thing that came up was the tendency of some fillings - just jam, for example - to totally liquefy and run out of the triangle. I thought adding chopped apricots to some plum jam would be a good consistency and thick enough to stay in the cookie. That turned out well; about two tablespoons of jam to the quantity of apricots above worked a treat.

Rolling the nutella in almonds was slightly more tricky; again, if the nutella had been cold it probably would have gone better. 

Putting the hamentaschen onto the warm cookie sheet as I prepped them wasn't a great idea, as the dough heated up the butter melted and exacerbated the slumping that you see above. after that batch i started putting them in the fridge while they waited, and re-chilled the dough that was waiting to be rolled out. 

There's a sweet spot between dough thickness and the diameter of the circle involved; my guesstimate is that I was somewhere around .50 to .75 cm, cutting the rounds with a coffee cup.

For next time: 

• less flavoring in the dough - the second tsp of flavoring was unnecessary; i'll omit the almond.
• might actually substitute some margarine for butter, as that would create less spreading.
• additional kinds of filling, maybe try my hand at poppy?
• multiple cookie sheets.

Also: found these tips about cookie baking:

"How do you combine it all to come up with your favorite winning texture? The tips below will help you achieve the cookie you desire.

Flat
If you want your cookies on the flat side, you can do some or all of the following things: Use all butter, use all-purpose flour or bread flour, increase the sugar content slightly, add a bit of liquid to your dough, and or bring the dough to room temperature before baking.
Puffy
If you like your cookies light and puffy, try some of the following tricks. Use shortening or margarine and cut back on the fat, add an egg, cut back on the sugar, use cake flour or pastry flour, use baking powder instead of baking soda, refrigerate your dough before baking.
Chewy
If chewiness is your desire remove the cookies a few minutes before they are done, while their centers are still soft and not quite cooked through. The edges should be slightly golden but the middle will still look slightly raw. Use brown sugar or honey as a sweetener. Try using egg yolks instead of whole eggs. This will add some extra moistness to the cookies thus helping to be a bit more on the chewy side.
Crispy
For crisp and crunchy cookies, bake your cookies a few minutes longer than suggested and immediately remove them to a wire rack to cool. Cookies made with all butter and high amounts of white sugar will also crisp quite nicely. Another trick is to use bread flour.
Common Cookie Problems

Cookies brown too quickly – the oven is too hot or baking pans are a dark color. Try baking at a lower temperature, longer or use heavy gauge aluminum baking sheets.
Bottom of cookies brown too quickly – same as above, or the oven rack is too low, or too much sugar is in the cookies.
Top of cookies brown too quickly and bottoms are not cooked– the rack is too high in the oven
Cookies spread too much – the dough is too soft - refrigerate for 15 minutes; warm baking sheets were used; too much butter, oil, or margarine was used – try using a 50/50 mix of shortening and butter.
Cookies do not bake evenly – your cookie sheet may be warped or the temperature throughout the oven is not even."     

Jars. Sodas.

Me: "By the end of the bottle, I was almost used to the taste."
Jen: "Carbonated Robitussen"

Me: "No Sugar Added" just meant it was full of aspartame.
Jen: At least it tastes like it has actual fruit juice in it.

A country this grey and rainy should really think twice
about putting "Depressed" and "Reject" on their canned goods

South of the border in NW London

Jen recently got back from a trip to the States, where she spent some time in Arizona. She grew up there, and has strict standards for what qualifies as good Mexican food. So far, I don't know of any places in London to scratch that itch, so while Jen got to eat at Carolina's on her vacation, I still had a burrito-shaped hole in my heart. Or stomach.


At first, my standards were pretty high - I wasn't interested in Old El Paso brand enchilada kits, thank you, I wanted the real stuff. Then I tried the Waitrose brand "Salsa Relish" and found it to be more like relish than salsa. As in, syrupy sweet tomatoes and peppers. I tried adding vinegar, hot sauce, lime and spices to it, but that only made it even weirder. Okay, fine.  So I'd be making salsa from scratch. I've tried making corn tortillas before and had difficulty pressing them out thin enough - and I wasn't sure where to get masa flour here. Although! London water has so much lime content that maybe I could actually nixtamalize corn? (edit: nope. looks like I will need 1/4 cup pickling lime in 3 quarts water to treat 2 pounds of corn)

After a tip from Dave Wallin at Eight of Swords Tattoo in Williamsburg - I made these flour tortillas. They were really good, but not thin enough for rolling up into burritos; that could have been due to my technique rather than something inherent in the recipe. While I'm okay with making every element from scratch, that does add a bit of time to dinner preparation, so I'll reserve that for a more special occasion. I was used to having acceptable tortillas available in Brooklyn, with my only responsibility that of creating the fillings.

There is some stuff in the "International Food" section of the grocery store that was labelled as Mexican. Besides the Old El Paso, there is "Discovery (TM) More Adventurous Tastes" brand tortillas, refried beans, and jalapeno paste. It was next to the jars of Uncle Ben's "Creole" "Tex Mex" and  "BBQ" sauce. I had my doubts, especially about the tortillas, which were labelled "TORTILLAS FOR FAJITAS and other authentic Mexican dishes like Quesadillas, Burritos and Enchiladas". The blurb on the back claims that quesadillas are "Mexico's answer to Pizza". Silly me; I had no idea that pizza was a question; it's always felt more like a declarative statement. Still, what can one expect from Mexican food manufactured in Milton Keynes?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not a total stickler for authenticity and I think that a healthy dose of adaptation does a recipe good, especially the use of seasonal or locally available ingredients. But if you want brown sauce, catsup with a little worcestershire in it won't be the same, and there's a world of difference between english mustard and French's (tm). So the goal is to get something about as close as I could in my kitchen in Brooklyn, with heartfelt apologies to the rich and varied traditions of real, authentic Mexican cooking.

This is going to be a continuing series of efforts - the first dinner was perfectly acceptable, but there's definitely room for improvement.

Spanish rice with peas:

• 1.5 cups brown rice
• 3 cups water
• cumin, turmeric, salt, pepper to taste.
• fistful of frozen peas.
• butter

pretty basic: cook the rice, add the spices, butter and frozen peas when the rice is done. Not too complicated.

Black Beans:

Due to a slight mishap (beans ran out of water while cooking, subsequently burned.) we ended up using a 50/50 mix of black and adzuki beans. So, I boiled the beans in water till they were a little harder than al dente, and finished them up by cooking in chicken stock. Then I added TVP, or textured vegetable protein and homemade chili powder.

Homemade chili powder:

• 1 part oregano
• 1 part black pepper
• 2 parts cumin
• dash cinnamon
• dash salt
• red pepper, ancho pepper and cayenne to taste.

and then to finish up, I made homemade fresh salsa

• 6 cherry tomatoes
• red bell pepper
• one small onion
• coriander leaves
• orange-peel infused olive oil
• juice and zest of two limes
• salt
• pepper
• chipotle pepper paste

i have no idea of the proportions here, just chopped up all the veggies to about the same consistency, added the lime juice and oil, stirred it up a bit and added the salt, pepper and chipotle until it tasted about right. This one is pretty easy to eyeball if you've had fresh salsa before and enjoyed it.

sriracha and other delights

Quick dinner: I used frozen peas and fresh carrots for this. Dinner was ready in 20 mins, counting the time i spent looking in the fridge and idly speculating what to eat.

• Press as much water out of your tofu block as possible. Let rest on a paper towel, blot off as much moisture as you can. 
• Slice tofu into 2cm/half inch thick slices. Heat up vegetable oil in a pan; you want enough oil to keep the tofu from resting directly on the pan, which will make it stick and pull apart. 
• When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the tofu, and cook till lightly crisped. 
• Take the tofu out of the pan, set aside. Carefully pour the oil into a heatproof container. 
• Add green peas and sliced carrots to the pan; reduce the heat to medium. Put a lid on the pan while you mix up this sauce:
• 2 parts soy sauce to 1 part sesame oil, and add a pinch of sugar, a pinch of black pepper, and a pinch celery salt. 
• Lift up the lid, and see how hot the pan is - you want it hot enough to reduce the sauce a bit. Adjust pan temp as needed.
• Pour the sauce over the veggies, let reduce slightly, add tofu. 
• Sriracha can be drizzled on top.

If you have some ideological or aesthetic objection to bean curd, this recipe also works just fine with chicken,

more photos:

Alex Paul and Sarah Shore

Bikes of Britain

brixton market

The sign said these were Goatfish. ??

and here we have herring.

Took a trip to Brixton Market today with my neighbor Sarah. She'd heard of a pizza place that was supposed to be quite good - 2008 winner in London Time Out's "Best Cheap Eats" category - but was only open from noon to 5, making dinner out there pretty much impossible for those who work in an office. Still - brick oven pizza for under £7 is worth a trip, in my book. So we ventured out to see if Franco Manca was as good as it sounds.

Brixton's the last stop on the line, but still pretty easy to get to from where we live. Jubilee to Green Park, then transfer to the Victoria line. Interestingly enough, the Victoria line had several other potential names - the "Walvic line" (Walthamstow - Victoria) and "Viking line" (Victoria - King's Cross). I like the sound of Viking line, but Walvic not so much.

Once you've arrived at Brixton tube station, the market's right around the corner. Head left out of the station, take another left on Electric Ave, and you're in the market. Franco Manca is located after the candles/religious artifacts/holy water store, next to the fishmonger. The restaurant is actually split between both sides of the covered market area. Despite the chilly weather today, it was great to sit there and people-watch. There was a short wait for tables - I'd imagine with warmer temps you'd wait longer - and we shared a table with two other people.

So, how was the pizza? I have had some amazing pizzas in NYC - probably top of my list would be Paulie G's in Greenpoint, or Lil' Frankies in the East Village; Franco Manca is definitely in that league. The crust was slightly puffier here; thin and moist where covered by sauce and toppings, then bulging and flaring up. Made for a convenient handle, although it seemed like the patrons were all eating with a knife and fork, so I did the same. When in a former Roman province, do as the etc. etc.

So, the crust was really good, the sauce was alright, but the real winner here were the toppings. Excellent chorizo and without a doubt the best pepperoni i have ever eaten. And the Gloucester Old Spot ham/ricotta/mushroom one was fantastic as well. Apparently the owners, Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo, take great care to source their ingredients. The 280 year old sourdough starter was allegedly swiped by a friend from a bakery on Ischia, which is an island near Naples, the mozzarella is made at an organic buffalo farm in Somerset (apparently the owners had a mozzarella di bufala expert from the Apennines flown in to teach the Somerset cheesemakers the specifics. )

Now that's dedication to the ingredients. And in my opinion, it's worth it.  Almost every review of Franco Manca I've read has been positive, and I don't think "There's not enough cheese, and it's shaped funny" is a valid critique of Neapolitan pizza. I will definitely be going back again. Salad, two pizzas, wine and an espresso for under £28? Yes please.


Menu here

some deptford photos

by the canal

rigsby - check out his music here

by the train

odds and ends