Category: Food

Roquefort & carrot pie, pub style

After five or six days of cold, rainy weather, it was time to give the clover sprouts a rest and have some proper comfort food. The Roquefort & carrot pie was inspired by the recipe for blue cheese and leek tartlets in The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook.

The idea of rolling walnuts into the pie crust is brilliant. I had bought leeks for this pie, but I had already used the leeks in soup. Roquefort, though, is well compatible with most winter vegetables, so I used carrots. Next time I use cheese in a pie, though, I think I’ll choose a more versatile melting cheese such as Gruyère.

Don’t forget the ale.

The heartache of not having any pubs

I’m always excited when I get a new cookbook, but I found this one particularly exciting. Where I live, I’ve adapted to living in a place dominated by Trump culture, shocked by how the insular suburban attitude has taken over rural America. My adaptation mostly involves staying home here in the woods. I chiefly encounter presentday rural culture when I’m out on the road — heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles driving too fast and always tailgating, running over wildlife without even slowing down, the almost complete, and voluntary, abandonment of what was best about rural America by the very people who want to roll the clock back to the 1950s but wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how to do it. To them I would say (but I don’t): But you abandoned all that. Remember? It’s the Dollar General people who couldn’t make a biscuit if you held a gun to their heads who think they know the recipe for making America great again. I roll my eyes.

Anyway, this cookbook caused me to wonder whether pub food really is this fancy. But I suspect that more and more of it is, as well trained cooks from places such as the Cordon Bleu have moved to places where there is enough tourist traffic to support excellently executed traditional cooking. Good food from good ingredients prepared by good cooks cannot be cheap. Only in places where money flows freely can it be found. I am fondly remembering the pub at Benners Hotel at Dingle in County Kerry, where the tourist money flows freely, though to the irritation of people who have lived there since before Dingle was discovered. My recent trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, showed me that the taverns there do it right — good ale, good eats, and honest (because Williamsburg is so old) 17th Century atmosphere.

Strangely enough, there are two places within 12 miles of me that brew beers and ales. One of them I’ll never go to, because their photos show a metal building lit with fluorescent light, a stark interior, no food served. Sorry. That’s not a pub. The other place, in the little town of Madison, attempts to create some atmosphere, but they don’t serve food. I sampled their ale once and didn’t like it, so I won’t be going back. To my mind, good ale requires at least the option of food to go with it. Good bottled ales are easy to find these days, and for some reason I find myself drinking more ale and less wine.

To the person who ran over the fox yesterday on Highway 772, and to the persons who hit the deer and the three squirrels that I saw on the road yesterday while making a grocery run: Please tell me again how you plan to make America great again. While I wait, I’ll just stay home.

I think I’ll try the bleu cheese and walnut tartlets first.

Miso broth

One of my winter resolutions is to drink more warm drinks. Miso broth is a good choice.

Miso, of course, is live and fermented, made mostly from soybeans. Miso broth is pretty salty, but no saltier than soup. To get the probiotic benefits of miso, it mustn’t be heated too much. Some sources say less than 140F is OK. I keep it below 120F (49C) just to be sure.

Miso broth cries out for some fresh winter herbs. I’d better get to work on that.

By the way, I got that bowl yesterday at an annual event sponsored by the local arts council. It’s a fundraiser for county food banks. They call it “Soup and a Bowl.” For a $25 donation, you get a handmade bowl and your choice of soup, served outdoors. The event yesterday was so well attended that the available bowls were gone in the first hour, and some of the soups started running out. The bowls, in many different shapes and colors, are all made by local potters. Most of the work that comes from small potteries seems to be in a hippy style that doesn’t really appeal to me. I got there early enough to get a bowl before the bowls (and the chili) ran out. One classic bowl with a cream-colored glaze, the only one with a handle, stood out from the others. Why don’t more soup bowls have handles? The potter lives a few miles north of me.

Mushroom Wellington


Click here for high-resolution version.

Last week, the Washington Post’s food section had a recipe for vegetarian mushroom Wellington. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Today was a cold day, a good day for making puff pastry and for using the oven. So I did it.

As always with recipes, I borrowed the concept and modified it to suit my own taste. Chestnuts didn’t sound nearly as good to me as walnuts. The Post’s recipe calls for bread crumbs in the filling, which I thought was a poor idea because there already are enough carbs in the crust. I made up the difference with peas and carrots. And I seasoned it with a touch of sage and mace rather than the herbs that the Post’s recipe calls for. The Post’s recipe uses large slices of portobello mushrooms, I assume to resemble slices of beef. Instead, I chopped the roasted mushrooms coarsely and mixed them in with the rest of the filling.

The Post’s recipe also calls for store-bought puff pastry. What would be the fun in that, even if I could find it? Adventure in the kitchen means making puff pastry every now and then. I used half butter and half olive oil, which works great. As long as you keep the dough cold and there are some butter bits in it, the pastry will turn out fine.

I’ve written here before about how all forms of pie are magical. I thought a lot about that while I was making mushroom Wellington. Partly, pies are comfort food. Pies are ancient, going back to the Middle Ages and no doubt beyond. And covered pies, or pies enclosed in a crust, have the same kind of appeal as a nicely wrapped present. You get to open it to see what’s inside.

You’ll probably need to make some thin brown gravy to moisten this dish. And you’ll need some ale.

My take on colonial onion pie

Three days after I got home from Williamsburg, I couldn’t stop thinking about the onion pie at Chowning’s Tavern. So I made an onion pie.

I used the concept from the recipe below. I didn’t use any eggs, though. I included a couple of Morningstar’s vegetarian breakfast sausage.

Recipe for Williamsburg onion pie

Though sliced boiled eggs inside the pie doesn’t sound terrible, I think that the next time I make onion pie I’ll include some grated Gruyère, the better to bind the layers of apples and vegetables. I was afraid that the pie would be dry, but the liquid that the apples and potatoes lost during cooking took care of that. A very slight dusting of potato starch inside the pie might also be an improvement.

Except for the calories in the crust, there’s nothing at all unhealthy about onion pie. With a little tweaking, this kind of old-fashioned cooking could be just as healthy as the Mediterranean cooking that has become a kind of international standard for travelers. Our ancestors were right — mace and nutmeg are the perfect seasoning for this pie. While the pie was baking, my house smelled just like Chowning’s Tavern.

Williamsburg onion pie


Onion pie with brown ale, Chowning’s Tavern, Williamsburg

I’m back home after a couple of very nice days in Colonial Williamsburg with Ken. Mostly I shot video rather than photos. I’ll post a video after I get the editing done.

Onion pie, it seems, is a Williamsburg specialty. The recipe in the link below calls for boiled eggs sliced into the pie. The version of onion pie that we had at Chowning’s Tavern, however, had a fried egg on top of the pie but no egg inside the pie. I think that would be my preference. I’ll make an onion pie some chilly day and use Chowning’s Tavern’s method. I would assume that this pie was an English favorite that the American colonists brought with them.

Recipe for Williamsburg onion pie

The recipe above is based on an 18th Century recipe:

Wash and pare some potatoes and cut them in slices, peel some onions, cut them in slices, pare some apples and slice them, make a good crust, cover your dish, lay a quarter of a pound of butter all over, take a quarter of an ounce of mace beat fine, a nutmeg grated, a tea-spoonful of beaten pepper, three tea-spoonfuls of salt; mix all together, strew some over the butter, lay a layer of potatoes, a layer of onions, a layer of apples, and a layer of eggs, and so on till you have filled your pie, strewing a little of the seasoning between each layer, and a quarter of a pound of butter in bits, and six spoonfuls of water; close your pie, and bake it an hour and a half. A pound of potatoes, a pound of onions, a pound of apples, and twelve eggs will do.

— Glasse, Hannah, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, page 259

Making persimmon pudding

Two years ago, I wrote thorough post on making persimmon pudding from wild persimmons. This year, Ken and I have made a video.

That was yesterday. I’d be ashamed to tell you how much persimmon pudding is left this morning.

Tofu foo yung

I was having a protein craving, which caused me to think of egg foo yung. When I had my own chickens, I used to make it. But it occurred to me that mashed tofu, with the right seasonings and some sort of binder, might make a nice foo yung. After Googling, I saw that tofu foo yung is a thing. I’m certainly not the first to think of it.

As with just about everything I cook, I read recipes for ideas, then I do what seems right for my diet and my taste. So, for my version of tofu foo yung:

Mash the tofu with a fork. Add just enough gluten flour to serve as a binder. Season it well. Turmeric or curry powder will add color. As with all Chinese cooking, umami is the key. Trader Joe’s umami seasoning, which relies largely on dried mushrooms, works great in all sorts of meaty vegetarian dishes. To give the gluten flour a bit of a boost as a binder, I add about a teaspoon of potato starch. Brewer’s yeast adds color and protein as well as umami. The moisture in the tofu probably is all you need. But if you include too much gluten flour and need a little liquid, try tomato juice. Peas and some chopped onion are good additions. But I think that tofu foo yung doesn’t have enough binding power to hold a lot of vegetables together the way eggs can. The gluten flour adds protein, and it also gives a nice meaty bite to vegan protein dishes. The bite and texture of tofu foo yung is a lot like eggs.

In the frying pan, I start with almost round balls of the mixture. But I gradually press it down and flatten it as the gluten sets up. You’ll need a nice, savory gravy, of course. I use flour as a thickener, with tamari and some Better Than Bouillon to darken the gravy and add umami. Garlic powder improves all Chinese sauces.

Garden chowder

It’s really too hot for soup. But I’ve been making some fine chowders out of summer vegetables, centered around fresh corn. As always with my cooking, there is not an exact recipe. Just use what you’ve got.

Coarsely chop some onion and mild peppers. Sauté them in olive oil with a little butter. Add corn fresh cut from the cob, and sauté the corn with the onions and peppers. Five minutes of sautéing should be enough. Add water. Cut a fresh tomato in half and drop the tomato into the pot. Add a cup or so of precooked white beans, if you’ve got them. I’m not ashamed to use canned beans when I need beans quick.

Simmer all that, covered, for half an hour. Remove the chowder from the heat and move the tomatoes to a saucer to cool. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the skin and put the tomatoes back into the pot. Whiz the chowder with a hand blender. Season it. My secret ingredient for seasoning soups are the vegetarian versions of Better Than Bouillon. Add a little cream.

As a concession to summer weather, serve the chowder warm instead of winter hot.

Marmite

I am embarrassed to admit that, for the longest time, I didn’t recognize the difference between Marmite and Nutella. I filed them both away in the seldom-referenced category of mysterious European goop in small jars that people make jokes about.

But Marmite and Nutella are very different. Nutella, made in Italy, is a sweet concoction made of hazel nuts and chocolate. Marmite, though it originated in Germany and is now made in Britain, is a salty, savory brown goop made from yeast salvaged from brewing. I recently came across an article in British newspapers about the health benefits of the high concentrations of B vitamins in Marmite. But watch out for the salt!

Marmite, which is very rich in the umami flavor, is no doubt a less refined relative of monosodium glutamate, which also is extracted from yeast, though the MSG is of course refined into a white salt. I am not among those who disparage MSG. Back in the 1970s, MSG got a bad reputation based on falsehoods. Again and again studies have shown that MSG does not cause headaches and that it’s not bad for you. The truth is that yeast extracts are used in many foods to enhance flavor. I’m guessing, though, that there is no yeast extract more flagrant than Marmite. There is a slight bitterness — hops from the brewing? — but the umami flavor goes on and on. There’s a boozy, old-world flavor about it that I like. Marmite has been made for 120 years. It reminds me of a pub, and I like anything that reminds me of pubs.

No doubt Marmite is an excellent seasoning for dark soups and stews. I’ve seen recipes for Marmite pasta sauces. All that is something that I will definitely experiment with this winter. It’s too hot right now for that sort of thing.