The vagabond is in grief as the new year pushes forward.  MC – my Master Chef, Master of Ceremonies and partner for twenty memorable years – suffered a fatal heart attack on Sunday, January second.  Please bear with me, perhaps reread some previous posts on the wonders of this season, and I will return with a post later this month.

HAPPY  NEW  YEAR !

We’re just settling back into the old stone house after a snowy Nordic Noël.  The vagabond was itching to cook up a little something sweet to welcome the New Year, but what could be found in the cupboard? A few golden apples, almonds, eggs…and some (essential) cardamom from Finland, with a walnut of butter left in the fridge.

After being away, apple pudding from scratch

What can we pull together to celebrate a new month, a new year? It isn’t unusual that this urge to make a sweet something seizes me when we return from a long, arduous trip (why go North in December…?).  So, quickly I reached for a  shallow, small (20 cm/7 to 8″) baking dish, popped a knob of butter into it to melt in the oven while it warmed to 350°f, and sliced up two golden apples.  This is the way our pudding for two went together:

1 knob of sweet butter

2 apples, quartered, seeded & peeled and thinly sliced

1/3 cup sugar (or less if your apples are very sweet)

1/3 cup runny yogurt or thin crème fraïche

1 heaped Tablespoon plain flour

1 tsp. crushed black cardamom, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 Tablespoons toasted almonds, coarsely chopped

Variations:  add rum-soaked raisins (+ the rum), or chopped pitted prunes

Melt the butter in the baking dish, remove from oven before it browns.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the 2 eggs with sugar, then blend in alternately the yogurt and flour with spices. Pour the melted butter in last, and arrange the apple slices in a whorl, overlapping in the hot dish.  Transfer the batter to the baking dish, top with the chopped almonds (or pecans if you have no almonds).  Slip the dish onto the middle oven shelf and bake for 25 minutes or until it is puffed and toasty-golden. Let this cool in a draft-free place (but it will deflate anyway) – it is more of a flan pudding than a cake.  Serve warm with a cup of afternoon tea – or after lunch espresso.  Dusting with powdered:icing sugar is optional …the vagabond didn’t – having seen enough snow for quite awhile!

Coming up in January:  more about Janus/January in France, more on (essential?!) cardamom, a few truffle notes + a really red soup

Festival of Lights

While this uniformly gray December day draws toward dusk, the vagabond lights an Advent candle and begins to stir up a batch of croquettes.  My many friends of the Jewish faith are probably doing the same in observance of their last night of Hanukkah.  It is almost sundown on the eighth night of Hanukkah, and within half an hour, the last Menorah candle will be lighted in Jewish homes around the world.  A puffy or crispy fried food is always on the menu, with Latkes, crunchy galettes of shredded potatoes, the most common.  Interpretations of “fried” have expanded to include all sorts of savory fritters, croquettes and beignets to commemorate Hebrew history when the Macabees’ miraculous eight days of oil was supplied from a small flask that would normally last just one day.  In Portuguese Jewish homes, salt cod croquetas might be served, while on Italian Hanukkah tables a diamond shaped sweet Frittelle di Hanukkah will be studded with raisins and anise seeds.  My fascination with food traditions of many faiths led me to stir up a variation on croquettes, but rather than deep fried, I found that a moist vegetable croquette was better lightly browned in oil (to qualify on a Hanukkah menu), then baked to finish. This variation on sweet potatoes might suit your Holiday of Lights as a side dish – or even as a nibble with apéros.

Crispy sweet potato croquettes

This recipe for Croquettes de patate douce was tested with baked rather than boiled sweet potatoes, and the baked potato needed a tablespoon or two of boiling water to be mashed, as they dried slightly while baking. They can be made several hours ahead, then finish the baking & crisping before serving. But it is a very moist interior – the baking step is necessary. Shaped with two tablespoons they make an oval, relatively uniform shape and will serve four as a vegetable or beside the starter, while lots of small round ones will be enough to serve eight with cocktails.

3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, rinsed and cut up (300ml/1 1/3 cup mashed)

100 g/3/4 cup + 1Tablespoons plain flour; 1/4 tsp salt, white pepper , nutmeg

50 g/1/2 cup +2 Tablespoons ground almonds

50 g/1/2 cup + 3 Tablespoons freshly grated parmesan or grana pradano cheese

1 egg

flaked almonds, toasted as a finishing garnish + sea salt

oil for frying

Cook the sweet potatoes for 20 minutes in boiling water, drain and mash them or put into a food processor.  Stir in the egg and mix well, then the flour, seasonings, ground almonds & cheese. Mix all together (if you like the odd chunk of sweet potato , don’t blend it too smooth). Set the oven at 180°c/350°f; line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Heat the oil to cover the bottom of a cast iron skillet or deep fry pan. Have a plate lined with absorbent paper towels for the fried croquettes, with a skimmer or slotted spoon ready. Using 2 tablespoons, shape the croquettes and plunge them (no more than 5 or 6 at a time) into the hot oil, turning with a spoon or tongs as each side browns – which will be quickly; they burn easily. Turn gently til all are browned and ready to bake.  Transfer the hot croquettes to the baking sheet and bake for ten to twenty minutes (depending on size), shift them into a basket for appetizers or onto a platter with your main dish….lovely with duck or brisket of beef.

Versatile croquettes - with duck breast and seared peppers

Whether your candles are lit for Hanukkah, for Advent or for the Winter Solstice, the vagabond wishes you warm and wonderful holidays!

Begin with a bowlful of juicy arils

A marvelous seasoning – a magic ingredient – hasn’t turned up on the vagabond’s usual shopping circuit, so I set out to make pomegranate molasses chez nous. But why get into the loop of juicing and simmering this ruby fruit: why bother?  Is this just one of those esoteric culinary trends that come around in cycles?  Everyone has their motives when ingredients are involved, and for this cook in the Périgord, it relates to duck – lots of duck and all other feathered fowl so plentiful in our region.  Not only for duck, but the sweet tang of pomegranate molasses lends a complex dimension to many rich meats, a “secret ingredient” in the lamb and poultry tagines of the Middle East.  When I opened Crazy Water Pickled Lemons*, Diana Henry’s delicious romp across the cuisines of the eastern Mediterranean, to “Breast of Duck with pomegranate and walnut sauce”, my pursuit of pomegranate molasses began in earnest.  The recipe only asked for two tablespoons, so why not stir it up at home?  Concocting my own pomegranate molasses was not difficult – it simply takes a little time, a “Saturday afternoon with no rush” sort of project.  Winter sunlight slanted through the kitchen door windows as I whacked, peeled back the rind to pop out the arils (shiny red seeds) and juiced two mid-season pomegranates.  Our bio-grocery displays Valencia fruit from Spain’s east coast (possibly from the region of Elche), and once cut in half to top a salad, I noted the density of seeds in these pale-skinned pomegranates.

Dense with arils, the membrane releases easily

First, the seeds needed some encouragement to release from the skins, so I whacked them with a small rolling pin before scoring each fruit in quarters.

A few taps to loosen the arils

Then over a large bowl, I held the rinds and peeled them back to release the glistening arils.  A little juice was released, while the seeds were plump and easily separated from their veil of membranes.  Caution: cover yourself, as this juice stains cloth….in fact it is used as a dye for Turkish carpet wool.

Pull away any clinging bitter membrane

Curious about how much would be needed, I let the seeds accumulate to fill a two cup pyrex measure.  That was from one and a half pomegranates.  After tapping and peeling, juicing the “jewel of winter” is the second step in the process.  My blender has a juicing column attachment, so I filled the filtered column with rosy seeds and pulsed the juice out in short order.  It needs to be scooped and scraped once or twice to allow top layer seeds to fall closer to the central blades.

Pour the juice out through a small sieve into a saucepan, turn the heat on low and let it simmer for 20 to 30 minutes to reduce by half.  Watch carefully that it doesn’t burn.  Have a sterile jar and lid ready, or a small lidded cup to keep your pomegranate molasses ready for use.

Depending on variety and country, it can be a pearly pink or ruby red

And what about the other half a pomegranate, bursting with scarlet arils?  Ah, they are preserved in good gin – just a small jar full – to top a festive New Year’s sorbet or….perhaps to enhance a duckling as we welcome 2011.

* Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry, published in 2002  by Mitchell Beazley, takes a fresh look at multitudes of traditional dishes across Turkey, Spain, North Africa, Greece and southern Italy.

Next up: a little beignet for the holidays

Walnuts - in every region of France, a handful of favorite varieties

Not only is the approaching holiday season whispering a list of get-ready and must-be-done details in my ear,  there are menu traditions to be stirred into the upcoming days.  One tradition dictates poultry, another asks for at least one green or golden side veg, while the topper remains:  a rich nutty-fruity dessert.  For all courses, nuts really come into their own during the holidays – beyond the classic bowl of nuts with a casse-noisette after the feast, relaxing by the fireside (is this too too yesterday?) with a bit of brandy.  From the vagabond’s perspective in southwestern France, where nut groves march across undulating Périgord hills, the presence of energy-rich walnuts goes from soup to dessert.  Along the way, there are a few regional tricks I could pull out of the recipe box (or folio) to enhance both the fête…. and the leftovers.  What? already thinking about les restes?

Shelled and briefly toasted nuts, ready for... action

Nuts in the market are ready for shelling, and pink Lautrec garlic is still sweet (once the green germ sprout is poked out), so I reached for the mortar and pestle to combine the two in an aïllade.  Since anything aillé suggests the presence of garlic, you can imagine related condiments reach toward aïoli in Provençal fish stews and Gascon aillada to season snails. A related mix in the Périgord is persillade, a crushed blend of parsley and garlic for topping potatoes and grilled meats. I knew that chopped walnuts and garlic form the hefty flavor base of aillade and began to search for proportions. The more sources I found, the more variations appeared – but most agreed that the Toulouse version is the best known. When I began mashing 3 chopped garlic cloves in my small mortar, it was clear that however my intentions were to keep it “authentic”, I needed a larger mortar.  So, oop-la into the blender for this Aïllade Toulousaine:

22 g/3  plump cloves of peeled garlic, chopped + pinch of sea salt

75 g/3 oz.  dry*, skinned walnuts, very lightly toasted, chopped

150 ml/5 oz. oil, half walnut oil, half light olive oil

3 Tablespoons finely chopped parsley leaves  (reserve 1 T. for serving)

100 ml/1/3 cup + 2 T. crème fraïche (optional)

Put the walnuts & garlic into the blender in layers, pulsing half of it before adding the rest. Stop and scrape down sides twice, add 2 T. parsley and when it is all of a mealy texture, add the oil beginning with a thin drizzle with the motor running. Depending on your preference, you can blitz it until is becomes almost creamy (or add 1/3 cup + 2 T. of crème fraïche) or stop with the coarser texture. Turn it out into a bowl and blend in the last T. of parsley.  Cover the bowl and let it mellow for a few hours before serving as a dip for celery and other crudités, or with cold cuts, sliced game or …turkey.

The southwest classic with sautéed potatoes

Actually, our favorite market-break café stop suggests another course

Tartelettes aux noix, a hint of desserts to come

To all my fellow vagabond gourmands, wherever you are perched:             Happy Thanksgiving !

Nut notes: The best season for this and many other condiments and sauces using crushed nuts and garlic is August into September, when the new walnuts are considered “wet”. New crop garlic is juicier as well, so both are much easier to mash in a mortar for a finer consistency. Obviously, it is also the best time for making pesto with fresh basil and new almonds or pine nuts.

Primeurs are ready to sip with roasted chestnuts

Nouveau!  Signs scrawled on bistro black boards and in grocery windows across southern France proclaim their arrival:  the new, fruity wines are here! November’s third Thursday, the official release date for barrels, bottles and boxes of Beaujolais nouveau is cause for celebration – not only of a fresh batch of Beaujolais, but of many other regional reds.  Several of these primeurs were displayed in a cart in our village grocery this week; the vagabond couldn’t resist one of her favorite appellations, a primeur from Gaillac in the Tarn.  The grape for these young wines is the thin skinned, low tannin Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc, the same used in Beaujolais wines, which lends itself to carbonic maceration for reds ready to sip in less than three months.  So, why not celebrate the first red wines of 2010 with a touch of red on our plates as well as in the glasses?

A perk of this process: the aroma of roasted peppers

It all began at noon, when I roasted red peppers and eggplant in the oven to make a sauce for supper.  There are still local peppers and aubergines in the market stalls to inspire me, to suggest a special touch to a simply sautéed turkey steak with onions. This recipe* is one of those country traditions that doesn’t get very specific in quantities, so it is a little different every time I whip it up. The aromas of roasting peppers brings back flavor memories of Catalonian lunches beginning with Escalivada - a starter of roasted pepper strips and slabs of grilled eggplant. Although my original thoughts were to dilute the sauce with stock for colorful cups of soup, all that changed when  I tasted it:  don’t change anything, even the spices.  Be sure the veg are very fresh for this smooth  Red Sauce:

2 1/2 large or 3 medium sized clean red peppers/poivron (not piments)

1 medium to large eggplant/aubergine, washed and dried

2 cloves peeled and chopped garlic

4 anchovy fillets, oil or salt-packed – rinsed and dried, chopped

1 T. capers, drained

4 to 5 T. olive oil

Line a cake-roll (with edges) pan with aluminum foil to catch juices. Place the whole veg so that no sides touch.  Roast the peppers and aubergine in a hot oven, 230°c (fan)/450°f.  for about 20 minutes; turn them halfway through to allow all sides to blister or scorch a little. Remove with tongs onto a soup plate (they will give off more juices) and slip it into a paper bag, pinch closed and set aside to cool. Reserve any collected juices to add flavor to a soup later.  Meanwhile, chop the garlic and anchovies. Take the plate of veg out of the sack and slip off/ separate from skins and seeds, chop up the flesh (the eggplant need not be seeded, just skinned) coarsely. Put this in a blender with the garlic and anchovies, whizz it all together to make a thick sauce, stir down the sides with a spatula, then whizz and drizzle the olive oil in a thin stream. Taste for seasoning – it may want a drop of tabasco but no salt,  pour into a serving bowl; or keep in a jar in the fridge, where it improves within a few hours.  Serve as a color note on or beside poultry, fish or pork – hot or cold.  Finish your meal on a traditional note with roasted chestnuts to best  savor the last drops of primeur.  Packed in sterile jars, tied with a ribbon, this sauce makes a colorful holiday gift for someone who prefers savories to sweets…

Red sauce - when you are hungry for color

*Recipe for roasted pepper sauce adapted from the magazine, Country Living (UK) August 2007.

Next up: Nuts – walnuts, chestnuts and pricey pignola

Get out the old Griswold skillet, turn on the heat...

Irresistible, whether you call them cèpes, porcini (Italian), herkku tatti (Finnish) or boletus edulis, mushrooms from Sunday morning’s market rounds found their way to our table within twenty-four hours.  Our nice “mess”  – to revive an old morel hunting term – of mushrooms was actually enough for two meals, very fresh with relatively little trimming to be done.  We had quickly transferred them from plastic into a paper sack, kept them cool and made sure there were enough garlic cloves and parsley for the prep.  The juicy pink garlic peeled easily and parsley was plucked from the garden; with a little butter and some good olive oil at hand, supper was soon underway.

Lautrec pink garlic to chop, bacon chunks ready

As the resident Mushroom Master began trimming, I checked my Go-To site for mushroom questions:  www.leslieland.com.  This garden whiz has excellent columns and notes by mushroom expert Bill Bakaitis.  My concerns were to make sure that these were safe (raising a few questions even though they were bought from a mushroom vendor) and whether there were any warnings about drinking wine with the champignons. Not to worry:  it was clear that our boletus edulis all had smooth stems, with no shaggy or rough texture of a similar but inedible variety. There were also no warning notes on any danger in having a glass of wine with these mushrooms.  Once cleaned, the cèpes cooked in the hot, heavy skillet with chopped garlic and bacon in bubbling butter for about 20 minutes.  I loaded a basket with toasted baguette slices, we plated the cèpes and sat down to a magnificent country meal – straight from the market!

A quick drizzling of good olive oil puts a shine on the cèpes

Wine Notes: Many would choose a dry but fruity white – a Sancere comes to mind – to sip with cèpes.  The vagabond reaches for a country red, such as a three to five year old Côtes de Duras with a little tannic edge to accent the mushrooms’ woodsy richness.

What does it cost? At a reasonable 24Euros the kilo, or about 12 Euros a pound for the freshest quality mushrooms (older and spotted ones priced lower), I am curious about comparable prices in your markets….send us a comment on prices in your region.

Belgian endive & pomegranate seeds, crunchy & sweet

Usher in late autumn with a salad bowl full of crisp endive, Belgian or curly, slightly bitter endive greens.  But that isn’t enough, in fact it just gets us started on a quick weekday lunch.  Chop up the endive, mix up a mustardy vinaigrette and toss in a spoonful of pomegranate seeds to rest while you set the table, slice up a crusty loaf of pain de campagne and call folks to lunch.

Let the dressing rest 10 minutes as flavors mingle

The dressing or – vinaigrette à la Michel, as it is known around here – is a 1, 2, 3 operation:  1) measure 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard into a small bowl with a pinch of sea salt 2) whisk in 2 Tablespoons of sherry/Xeres vinegar, and whisk into the emulsion a drizzle of 3 Tablespoons olive oil…then the vagabond stirs in the rosy pomegranate seeds. Other additions can be chopped fresh chives, finely minced parsley, freshly shelled almonds or walnuts.  Just before serving, stir the dressing over and into the bowl of greens (add young spinach leaves, too!). The last touch is a cupful of cubed blue cheese, such as a tomme d’Auvergne from the market or roquefort (not too old and crumbly) if you want to splurge. Just don’t forget to add the pomegranate seeds – and add a little of their juice to the dressing… salad couldn’t be simpler.

Without intending it, you have a red, white & bleu salad

Dream drives was my working title for National Geographic Society’s latest book, the fifth illustrated tome in their 500 series. The vagabond has been commissioned to write destinations for them all, and it is true:  Drives of a Lifetime, 500 of the World’s Most Spectacular Trips packs in far-flung dream circuits for motoring in all corners of the globe.  Recently released, this comprehensive book covers a dizzying selection of dream trips in eight chapters.  Some cover the world’s back roads and popular local circuits, while others illustrate well known highways.  Australia’s Great Ocean Road, a twelve hour loop tour, is one of the “Ultimate Road Trip” features – a longer text found in each chapter.  Mountain lovers will be thrilled with diverse destinations, from Alaska’s Yukon Golden Circle to a Madrid Mountain Drive.

The vagabond's favorite trail through the Barolo & Barbaresco vineyards

A map illustrates every destination, as sea and shore, river and canyon, village byways, and urban excursions themes all fuel the reader’s wanderlust. The Driving Through History chapter includes a stunning range of trips, from a pre-Columbian trail in Mexico to Puglia’s olive groves on the heel  of Italy’s boot.  Although most trips are for four wheels, some could be adapted to two (or even to a dune buggy in Peru!).  And at last, ramble from Kentucky’s Boubon Trail and on through the Langhe valley’s vineyards in the Piedmont as the Gourmet Road Trips chapter wraps up this tantalyzing collection of road trip adventures.  Don’t miss the vagabond’s favorite 10 European Food Drives, as well as the U.S.  10 Wayside Bounty drives to enjoy regional specialties in season, from blueberries in Rhode Island, pumpkins and chocolate in Pennsylvania to late winter citrus harvest in Arizona’s roadside stalls.  It all leaves the reader hungry for more luscious images and succinct, spirited text…maybe the next in the series will be 600 journeys!

Gifting idea for active or armchair travelers on you list: order through the National Geographic Society site,  www.nationalgeographic.com/books or at your local independent book store.

Gâteau by the slice

In anticipation of the Salon du Chocolat* and its attendant media blitz, it seems the right moment to set aside seasonal vegetables and fruit for a minute to focus on le chocolat.  And how the French love their chocolate !  It’s hard to imagine a classic éclair, a profiterole or poire belle hélène without a dark drizzle of chocolate.  So it’s not surprising that the sweet, dark and fudgy American brownie has been enthusiastically embraced by French pâtissiers and star chefs over the last ten years.  The basic brownie, a sweet butter-chocolate-sugar concoction, can vary with whims and what is available.  A handful of hazel nuts? A touch of chili pepper, candied ginger, orange peel or glazed chestnuts? Toss in whatever you fancy, but not all at once! And although the fragile crust is part of a brownie’s charm, why not spread a glossy glaze/glaçage of white or milk chocolate over all, to simply gild the lily?

Crispy top, fudgy interior...

It was more than ten years ago that the vagabond baked her first French chocolate cake, à la Julia Child, a sinfully rich Reine de Saba/Queen of Sheba cake.  No leavening (like a brownie), dense and yet moist in the center (like a brownie), it opened my eyes to the special character of European cakes using ground almonds instead of flour.  Last week, I tried a recipe from l’Express magazine for “Brownies” and found it altogether too gooey in the center, not a brownie success story.  Remembering the Queen of Sheba, I incorporated almond flour instead of white flour and separated the egg yolks – the second batch of brownies turned out better with the help of whisked egg whites.  The characteristic crisp, tan top and dark interior were true to brownie tradition.  Although the l’Express recipe called for 42% bittersweet chocolate, I used 70 % chocolate for an extra edge, and incorporated a tablespoon or two of strong coffee for a Moka version.  If you have no square baking pans, a pie tin (27 cm/11″) works just as well and brownies can be cut in sliver-wedges.  Serve this with a buttermilk panna cotta, crème fraïche ice cream or a dollop of smetana to soften the chocolate’s bittersweet edge.  It goes together easily in an hour, start to finish. Let cool before cutting…

Heat oven to 160°c/325°f. and set the oven rack just below mid-oven. Butter a 9″ square pan or 11″ pie tin (smaller pan =  thicker brownies, but allow a few more minutes baking time); bring a saucepan of water to simmer under a bowl to melt the butter and chocolate.

170 g./3/4  cup  sweet butter, cut into bits

90 g/1 tablet minus 1 square of bittersweet (Bio/organic)French chocolate

3 eggs, (62 to 66 g. each), separated

120 g./1/2 cup + 2 T light brown sugar

120 g/1/2 cup + 2 T. sugar

40 g./1/3 cup ground almonds + 1 tsp. grated nutmeg

10 g./ 1 T. cocoa (Dutch process)

1 T. strong coffee

2 T. chopped almonds

In a metal bowl set over (not touching) simmering water, melt the chocolate & butter, stirring often.  Set aside when almost all melted; stir, let cool.  Separate the eggs and using electric beaters, beat the yolks, add gradually the brown then white sugar, until thick and glossy. Stir in the chocolate mixture, cocoa & coffee; fold in the ground almonds (and any chopped nuts or peel if using) – at this point add another spoonful of almonds if the batter seems thin. Whisk the egg whites to soft, firm peaks and fold this carefully into the batter. Pour into the greased pan, scatter chopped almonds over the top and bake for 20 minutes (for gooey center) or 30 minutes (for more cake-like center), but test at 20 minutes to see if toothpick comes out gooey or dry.  Let cool on a rack, cut and serve at room temperature with something creamy alongside….and sprinkle with cinnamon.

*From October 28th to November 1st, the Salon du Chocolate fills the Porte de Versailles in Paris 15th arrondissement with professionals and chocolate fans. See:  www.salon-du-chocolat.com  No time to travel to Paris?  Go to New York’s Chocolate extravaganza at the Metropolitan Pavilion, November 11th to 14th.  See the above site for these and many other salons.

Versailles pastry shop window, chocolate inside and out...

Note: Watch for November’s chocolate feature: a butterless chocolate cake.