DC Culinarian

Churros

It's National Doughnut Day. HOORAY OBESITY!

All across DC, bakeries and patisseries are handing out free doughnuts to mark the occasion which, surprisingly enough, actually has some real history to it. The first National Doughnut Day was during the Depression, when foodstuffs were so rare and exalted that they were ripe for canonization. So the Salvation Army decreed that the first Friday in June would be set aside in observance of doughnuts. This celebration of fried rings of dough and fat started in Chicago, which should surprise no one.

But I don't like being told who to fete and how, and I'm sure as hell not going to take orders from the army: Salvation, Kiss, or otherwise. So instead of doughnuts proper, I'm going to mark today with churros -- similar to doughnuts, just better.

The churro hails from... Argentina? Maybe? Or Portugal. Possibly Spain. No one seems to really know but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it's basically a straightened doughnut, but made in a festive star shape that increases the surface area of the pastry which results in heightened crispiness from the frying. More surface area also means more places for cinnamon sugar and/or caramel to grab on to.

Making them is a but of a pain -- the dough has to be prepared on the stovetop, which is unusual, and there's copious amounts of vigorous stirring, made all the more difficult by its thick, tacky consistency. But it's worth it! Just be sure to fry in very hot oil (a clip-on digital temperature probe is a handy tool for this one) so you get a good crisp and a soft, chewy center.

Use this recipe from Ruben Ortega, and you can't go wrong.

Wild Blueberry Pie

Mrs. Culinarian and I are going to Australia. This is tangentially related to blueberry pie, I swear.

I have a brother in Melbourne. He moved there last year to go to grad school, though Melbourne is quite conveniently also where his girlfriend hails from. She is now his fiancée, which is fantastic. And not just for them! Not only do I get another sister-in-law, I get one who can play knifey-spoony. So we're going to the land of funnel web spiders and Yahoo Serious for a wedding.

Getting two people to Australia ain't cheap. Being in Australia ain't cheap. Of the five most expensive cities in the world, two are down under: Sydney and... Melbourne. I'm not complaining, mind you. Well, I am, but only insofar as it relates to blueberry pie. Which it does. Sort of. Bear with me.

With the Australia trip on the horizon, Mrs. Culinarian and I have implemented cost-savings measures. They are many and splendiferous, but only two are relevant to today's discussion: bicycling to work, and shopping more at Trader Joe's. In the frozen foods section of Trader Joe's one will find bags of wild blueberries. Mrs. Culinarian made this discovery several times over and picked up wild blueberries every time she went, leaving our freezer littered with unopened bags of blueberries.

Something had to be done. So, pie.

Shortly after the pie was completed and the first slices consumed, Mrs. Culinarian started her intention to have a slice for breakfast the next morning "if there is any left," unsubtly suggesting that I was not only capable of consuming almost an entire blueberry pie in one evening, but likely to do so.

I'm not going to call that slander. Actually she was pretty on the nose, and here's why: bicycling to work. For me it's about 18 miles round trip. Every day. That's a daily pastry indulgence. At the end of the circuit, my thoughts are not "whew that was a good workout" or "boy I sure am happy to be staying fit." It's literally: "Pie time, son." I've arrived home sweat-drenched and completely parched, and reached for pie instead of water. And pie contains water. And salt. It's basically Gatorade.

Anyway, I'm going to Australia and I eat a lot of pie.

Recipe after the jump.

Caramelized Pear-Ginger Tart

So as I was making this tart last week, I tweeted out a rather striking photo of the pears just after they'd finished caramelizing. Strikingness of the photo aside, this was a thoroughly mundane event. However, this being the internet, my innocent dissemination of a photo of pears elicited a disproportionately raw response:

@simonmaloy Less than .02% of your followers give a shart about your food. Thanks for caring

— Chris Reier (@seeryer) December 7, 2012

I understand the sentiment of the complaint -- if it is a complaint. After all, the internet is littered with amateurs such as myself posting poorly lit and grainy photographs of whatever happens to be on their plates. I try to bring something more to the affair, but I can see how lumping me in with the rest makes sense, at least in the eyes of a frustrated tweeter.

The logic, however, escapes me. Was he including himself in the 0.02 percent? It's possible, given the "thanks for caring" sign off (though I don't really know what to make of that). And what of this "giving a shart" business? I'm all too aware of the meaning of this portmanteau neologism, and it is a thoroughly undesirable notion to "give" something of that nature with regard to one's cookery.

I am flummoxed.

My flummoxing stems not least from the fact that caramelized pears are an unchallenged good, particularly -- as is the case here -- when browned in butter. Sliced and nestled in an eggy custard with crystalized ginger to cut the sweet a bit, they are the makings of a fine tart for the holiday season.

Owing to the overabundance of confusion, I've decided to seize the initiative and turn this strange business into something positive. A rallying cry, if you will, to foster holiday pastry appreciation. So please...

Give a shart. Bake a tart.

Recipe after the jump.

Almond-Orange Cake

The newly announced bankruptcy of Hostess Brands Inc. has left me conflicted.

On the one hand, Twinkies and Snowballs and many of the other creme-filled "snack cake" offerings Hostess churned out were objectively terrible and their disappearance from convenience store wire racks is an unalloyed good.

On the other hand, Hostess Fruit Pies were basically the only thing I ate from ages six to twelve and stand out as the finest snack confection ever mass-produced. The trick to eating one, you see, was to bite off one end, scoop out as much of the filling as you could with your finger, and then eat the hollowed shell. The lemon pies were the best.

But they're gone now, and it's of no use to get sentimental. Times like these demand action, and when a pastry void such as this is created (one might call it a cakehole) it is incumbent upon us to fill said void with something new. Something different. More cake.

And so we turn to Elizabeth David and her smashing, top-shelf recipe for almond-orange cake. This cake is easy: you can prepare the batter in the time it takes to pre-heat the oven. This cake is different: it doesn't have a scrap of wheat flour in it (save for a smattering of bread crumbs). This cake is delicious: it has orange three ways and a pleasingly muted almond flavor.

It's precisely the sort of cake you'd throw together for a Sunday brunch or something to serve with coffee after dinner. And in that way it's a poor substitute for a Hostess Fruit Pie. But Hostess failed, and they must have failed for a reason. This cake does not fail.

Rot in hell, Twinkie the Kid.

Recipe after the jump.

Balsamic Peach Raspberry Zabaglione

The occasion of peach week gives me the opportunity to share one of the more valuable cooking lessons I ever learned, imparted to me by my younger brother. He's far and away a better cook than I am, and succeeds at pretty much everything, which is thoroughly irritating. The flip side to this irksome trait is that his rare moments of failure stand out and become the stuff of legend. Such is the case with his infamous kitchen experiment: peach-raspberry cornbread.

Cornbread. With peaches in raspberries in it. In theory an excellent idea: cornbread is good, peaches are good, raspberries are good. Put them together and NEXT STOP FLAVORTOWN WOO WOOOOOO! Right?

Heh... no.

This happened a long time ago. We're something like 15-18 years out from the incident, and my brother was just a kid at the time. But it was such a transcendent disaster that comes up at family gatherings to this day. The lesson learned is that when it comes to cookery, the whole is not necessarily greater than the sum of its parts. Peach and raspberry go together wonderfully. They just don't play well with cornbread. The same could be said of chocolate, orange, and tuna.

So here we've kept the peach-raspberry combo and, in place of cornbread, added a little zabaglione, a whipped Italian custard made with egg yolks, sugar, and alcohol (in this case, white wine and Chambord). To cut it a bit we throw in a little bit of balsamic vinegar, which adds tang and brings down the sweetness a touch.

A few tips: the custard is light, but rich. Super rich. A little goes a long way so be judicious. That lightness is achieved by vigorous, sustained whisking. Like 10-12 minutes of straight whisk action. Be ready, or use a handheld electric mixer.

Whatever you do just be sure to keep things moving. You want custard, not scrambled egg, which, like cornbread, does not go well with peaches and raspberries.

Recipe after the jump.

Melocotones Rellenos

Now that you've had your fill of early '70s jam-band Southern rocking, it's time for dessert. Line up and prepare to receive one of the finer peach desserts around: melocotones rellenos.

This recipe comes from Spain, though you'd be forgiven for finding it to be a little... French. The name means "stuffed peaches," and in this case the peaches are stuffed with an eggy custard and meringue. As such, there's a whole lot going on in each bite.

Flavor-wise, you're combining the lightly carmelized sweetness of the meringue with the heavier flavor of the custard and the comparatively tart peach. On the texture front, the meringue is airy and light, the custard is smooth, and the peach is fleshy. Even the temperatures will vary, as you refrigerate and then blast the peaches in the oven. Different flavors, textures, temperatures -- this is the stuff of an excellent dessert.

And they're really not too much of a pain in the ass to make, provided you allow yourself enough time and know the basics of meringue.

So we start with dessert. Tomorrow, we'll be making a detour to the savory.

Recipe after the jump.

Lemon Tart

Each and every time you get something going in the kitchen, you know what's happening?

SCIENCE.

Cooking is chemistry. Delicious chemistry. I was a chem major at one point in college before the rigors of organic chemistry and Wednesday night drinking shunted me off into the humanities. But I never lost the bug. For science, I mean*.

That's why I dig blogs like Not So Humble Pie. They'll give you the recipe for a fantastic lemon meringue pie, but also hit you with the science behind it. I borrowed their recipe for the lemon filling to make this tart, and I suggest you take the time to read NSHP's explanation for ideal gelatinization of said filling. It's both interesting and useful, and it contains the phrase "hot bloated starch granules," which is a bonus. 

Having the science down is essential, particularly when baking, which is all about precision in your measurements, temperatures, and timing. Temperature is the key factor when making this lemon tart, specifically the effects of heat on starch. Corn starch's thickening prowess comes from its ability to absorb water when heated. However, if you heat the starch for too long at too high a temperature, it will break down and release that water back into the mixture, ruining the texture.

The tart itself is, well, tart. Because lemons. To cut the sour a little bit, a simple blackberry syrup haphazardly drizzled about the dessert plate area. The recipe for the pre-baked tart shell is the same one used in tarts past.

*Also for Wednesday night drinking.

Recipe after the jump.

Lemon Mousse

The heat in DC this past week reached levels of self-debasement. In the face of such swelter, pride and dignity seep out of your pores like so much fetid perspiration. You wear gym clothes around because real-person attire just doesn't breathe. You reconnect with friends you don't really like simply because they have access to a pool.

To combat the heat and the desire to engage in behavior that deviates slightly from societal norms, you need lemon mousse. Cool, refreshing, and reeking of class. Just look at it, in the martini glass, with the berries and mint. Oozing classiness.

Also, too: pretty easy to make, provided you respect the delicate touch required by meringue and whipped cream. If you're not keen on whipped egg whites and full-fat dairy, leave them out; the first half of the recipe makes an for an excellent lemon curd.

Reclaim your humanity, eat lemon mousse, and put a real shirt on. People can still see and judge you.

Recipe after the jump.

Iced Patriotism

Happy birthday, Ann Landers, Koko the gorilla, FOIA, the Erie Canal, noted big mountain namesake George Everest, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Also, too: America.

What we have here are three different, festively themed varieties of frozen confections to help fête our nation on its 236th birthday: Strawberry sorbet, French-style coconut ice cream, and Philadelphia-style blueberry ice cream.

French-style ice cream is made with egg yolks, which means you have to cook it. And that's the tricky part -- you want it hot enough so that the custard thickens, but not so hot that it turns to scrambled egg. The ideal custard temperature is between 170-175 degrees. A clip-on instant read thermometer is a big help.

Philly-style ice cream has no egg yolks. It's just milk, cream, sugar, and flavoring. Easier to prepare, but lacking the richness of its French counterpart.

Sorbet is sorbet. I already explained sorbet and the science behind it -- the same principles apply when making ice cream.

And each of them has added significance beyond their patriotic coloring. Philadelphia is the birthplace of American liberty. And without the French, the revolution likely wouldn't have shaken out as favorably as it did. And sorbet... the founding fathers were nuts for... uh... ice-crystal nucleation rates? Maybe?

Whatever, I needed something red.

Happy Fourth of July.

Recipes below the jump.

Sorbet Science

As with everything kitchen-related, there are tricks and techniques one can employ when making ice cream and sorbet to ensure the highest quality in your end product. I imparted one of those tricks in my recipe for blackberry sorbet, but didn't fully elaborate on its importance.

Ice cream and sorbet is all about texture. It has to be smooth, smooth, smooth. And the way to achieve this is to use SCIENCE to bend water molecules to your will.

Temperature is essentially the rate at which molecules vibrate. When you cool something, you're taking energy out of the system and slowing its molecules down. When water molecules have been slowed sufficiently, intermolecular forces hold them together in a rigid crystal structure -- they freeze. The way one achieves smoothness is by keeping those crystals as small as possible.

The way to do that is to ensure that the mixture you put into that ice cream machine is as cold as possible without actually being frozen. The colder the mixture, the faster it crystallizes, and the less opportunity water molecules have to form into big ice crystals.

That is why, after spending a minimum of four hours in the refrigerator, the recipe directs you to put the mixture in the freezer for ten minutes. It's an important step -- the more you slow those water molecules down, the happier you'll be with your end product.

Better sorbet through science.