Some Stuff I've Been Cooking - March 2023

Sharing recipes I've tried, for better or worse.

Last week on the newsletter I extolled the virtues of Breadcrumb Pasta à la Giada, confessing my penchant for laziness in the process.  Turns out I haven’t been quite as lazy as previously described because I’ve been futzing around in the kitchen a bit over the past few weeks, and I’m here to share the results.

The following are notable recipes I’ve recently tackled, mainly from my cookbook collection.  The span goes back to January, but moving forward, I’m hoping to make this a monthly update.

Gâteau de Nantes (Almond Rum Cake)

From Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes by Aleksandra Crapanzano

A podcast listener highly recommended Aleksandra Crapanzano’s extensive baking book Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes, which, as the title states, promises simple cakes inspired by everyday French recipes.  I was immediately won over by the tome, which features not a single photo (!!) and barely any illustrations.  What the book lacks in visual reference it makes up for with excellent writing and a deep roster of recipes.  Anyone familiar with Yossy Arefi’s outstanding Snacking Cakes will assuredly be drawn to this book, which requires a bit more fuss (ie. room temperature eggs and butter!  Overnight refrigeration!) but not much more effort.  Think of it as a next-steps accompaniment to Snacking Cakes.

After thumbing through the pages for no less than three weeks, I finally decided that this rum-laden Gâteau de Nantes would be my inaugural bake.  Why?  I’m not sure.  I’m not a big rum cake person.  Heck, I’m not much of a rum person in general.  But for some reason, on that January afternoon, it just felt right.

Happy to report this rum cake was probably the best I’d ever tasted.  It was unparalleled in texture, flavor, moisture, and booziness.  I did face one hiccup: a third of the cake remained in the pan when I flipped it out, but it was nothing some glaze couldn’t cover up.  While the recipe did not call for parchment paper, going forward, there will always be parchment.

Notably, this cake was so rum-my that my friend got a buzz off it.  Just how much rum is in it?  I believe we calculated 9 shots of rum (I’m too lazy to go fetch the book and get the exact numbers). Just know there’s rum in the batter, rum in the glaze, and rum in the soak.  It’s serious. And seriously outstanding.

Chocolate Orange Marble Cake

From Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes by Aleksandra Crapanzano

After the success of the Gâteau de Nantes, I was super excited to revisit Gâteau.  This time I tackled one of my favorite flavor combinations of all time: chocolate and orange. Unfortunately, this cake wasn’t the same unbridled success.  It was very delicious, with strong orange flavor and shockingly fudgy swirls running throughout, but the texture was slightly dryer than I would have preferred.  I suspect I was a bit too timid with the marbling, which caused splotchiness rather than true choco-orange integration.  Bites tended to be either orange or chocolate — not both.

Not my best marbling effort.

However, do not mistake this for a negative outcome.  I still really enjoyed this cake. It just didn’t blow me away the way I was hoping it would.  I suspect if I make this again, I’ll really get in there with my knife to make sure the chocolate swirls all about, and I’ll be a bit more judicious about pulling the cake from the oven earlier.  It’s just that after so many homeruns from books such as Snacking Cakes and Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking, I was starting to think that as long as you followed a recipe, cakes just… WORKED.  Turns out instinct should also be considered.

Chicken Musakhan

From Falestin by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley

Purple cabbage and parm salad (L) and chicken musakhan (R).

We eat a lot of chicken in our household, and this recipe has been one of my favorites of the past few years.  Roasted chicken thighs rubbed in warming spices — think cinnamon, allspice, sumac — served atop sweet onions, bread, and yogurt… and it all comes together in an hour.  One bite with all the components jammed on a fork (or better yet, wrapped in torn bread) is enough to make the eyes roll back in your head.

For this latest outing with chicken musakhan, I ran out of sumac, forgot the allspice, and had nothing better than sad pita to serve the chicken with.  That’s okay — the end product was still a raging success, even if the onions weren’t as vibrantly purple as they have been in the past (the lack of sumac effect).  Chicken musakhan is a wildly successful option for an easy weeknight meal or a show-stopping dinner party centerpiece.

Purple Cabbage and Parm Salad

From That Sounds So Good by Carla Lalli Music

I’ve been on a real cabbage kick the past few months, and the latest form of my cabbage-assaince has been Carla Lalli Music’s super simple cabbage salad with parm.  There’s not much to it:  mix a chopped head of cabbage with a bold mustard vinaigrette and shaved parmesan cheese.  Done.  This salad packs a crunchy flavor bomb… and it yields a lot. Almost too much.  Even though cabbage is quite sturdy in the fridge, we found the flavor degrades quickly overnight; so make a half portion and try to eat it all without leftovers.

The Classic Madeleine

From Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes by Aleksandra Crapanzano

Last year I bought madeleine pans with dreams of making the… cookie? Mini cake?... a regular part of my baking routine.  That didn’t happen.  But when I noticed my boyfriend quietly picking up a Starbucks madeleine habit, I decided to revisit this plan. I turned once again to Gâteau, and the results were fantastic.  One downside: the batter must rest overnight.  One upside: the joy of baking fresh madeleines with morning coffee. Only about 11 minutes in the oven.  This must become a ritual.

Chicken Pörkölt

From Home Food: Recipes to Comfort and Connect by Olia Hercules

Renowned cookbook author Olia Hercules offers up recipes from the varied locales of her life in Home Food, a book that I’ve been excited to dive into.  My first foray was with this simple chicken braise that relies almost exclusively on sweet paprika, onions and goose fat.  I didn’t have goose fat, but I did find some duck fat at the supermarket, which was fun.  The whole thing took about an hour and a half and involved browning chicken, sautéing onions, and then braising the whole thing down in paprika-suffused water. I wanted to love this dish, but it was merely okay.  I suspect I needed to let the braising liquid reduce much more than the recipe called for, but since I didn’t do that, the end product was nice but not memorable.  I’m intrigued by the promise of this dish; so I will give it another attempt.  After all, what else am I going to do with all the remaining duck fat? (I guess French fries?)

Crisped Potatoes with Romesco

From The Cook You Want to Be: Everyday Recipes to Impress by Andy Baraghani

For months I’ve been seeing smashed potatoes popping up on my social media feeds, thanks to the various food porn activities of sites such as The Kitchn.  However, I’d never actually made them until chicken pörkölt night.  I wanted a starch to soak up all the paprika sauce, and potatoes felt right.  I’m not sure these potatoes were the best liquid absorber, but dear God were they amazing.

First I boiled two pounds of baby Yukon golds for about ten minutes.  Next I drained them, let them cool down, and then performed what felt like potato CPR: cupped each potato under my hands and gently pushed down until they flattened and split.  Not saying it was effective CPR technique, but I definitely had flashbacks to Health Class in high school.  The newly smashed potatoes went onto a sheet pan where they were doused with olive oil and salt and then sent to a ritual death in a blazingly hot oven.  These were undoubtedly some of the very best potatoes I’ve ever made, and I’ve made a shit ton of potatoes. The mix of crispy exterior and creamy interior was about as close to perfection as a potato can be.

Making them even better was a chunky romesco made of jarred roasted red peppers, hazelnuts (I used almonds), and various other pantry items.  A zingy, delicious accompaniment to an already excellent dish.  It goes in the rotation!

Baked Lemon Pudding

From The New York Times, adapted by David Tanis from a recipe by JR Ryall

The New York Times cooking account on Instagram recently posted a mouthwatering photo of a baked lemon pudding that instantly made its way to the top of the dessert queue. The approach seemed simple enough: beat a mixture of butter, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, milk, and egg yolks.  Fold in whites.  Bake.  Enjoy warm.  The end result was… curious?

All tasters agreed there was a strange chicken flavor in the pudding, which we couldn’t account for.  I mean, why on earth would a lemon pudding taste like chicken?? Our best theory was that the oven was to blame, as it had previously been occupied by roasting chicken.  Could leftover aromas infuse the pudding?  Not sure.  Even odder was that the surprise poultry notes were not a barrier to enjoyment.  The texture felt closer to a curd than a pudding (and I mean both American and British styles of puddings), although with its creamy center surrounded by a semi-firm crust, maybe a soufflé is more apt? Doesn’t matter.  The whole thing was… strange.  None of us raved about it, and yet… none of us stopped eating it.  And a few days later, when I stuck my spoon in it to sneak a tiny bite, I found myself eating practically everything that was left in the baking dish.  A success? Didn’t feel like it.  But not a success? Didn’t feel like that either.  It’s a weird one.

Oil Crackling Shrimp

From The Woks of Life by Bill, Judy, Kaitlin, and Sarah Leung

I had shrimp, I had scallions, I had cilantro, and I had an underused wok.  What to do? I turned to my new cookbook, The Woks of Life, and decided to attempt oil-crackling shrimp.  This involved deep-frying in my wok, which was scary to me (I never deep fry), and not just that: it had to be fast deep-frying.  Yes, I was flash frying.  Honestly, I’m surprised I’m alive to tell the tale.

Actually, it was pretty easy, even if I was rather uncoordinated with my spider and spatula. The result: a shrimp dish that blew. me. away.  The mixture of textures, flavors, and aromas was so obscenely excellent that I wound up eating the entire serving, even though it was meant for two people.  I couldn’t stop!  This inaugural recipe was so successful that I absolutely cannot wait to try more from the Leungs.

Sautéed Spinach

I saw two enormous hunks of steak in the supermarket and bought them on a whim.  But what to go with?  I decided on a whim to sauté some greens, steakhouse style.  I had a bag of baby spinach languishing in the fridge – seemed like a good opportunity to save it.

First I heated olive oil in a skillet.  Then I added about two or three minced cloves of garlic.  And now the twist: I dropped in about half a teaspoon of oyster sauce. Or was it a full teaspoon?  I’m terrible at eyeballing amounts. Nevertheless, I guarantee that I’m not the first person to add oyster sauce to spinach, but I’m simply here to advertise that the impromptu decision was a great one.  Umami bombs, I’m learning, are the way to go in the kitchen, and oyster sauce is literally just umami in a bottle.  Anyhoo, I added the spinach and seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and red pepper flakes, cooking until everything wilted down but still had a little structure.  The outcome was a surprisingly phenomenal side dish that nearly upstaged the steaks.  Quite frankly, it almost felt rude.

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Thanks for reading. What have you been cooking lately? Any successes? Any failures?