A Finger in Every Pie

Sugar High Friday #13: Heart of Darkness

Chocolate clafoutis, chocolate clafoutis, chocolate...pear clafoutis.  Chocolate pear clafoutis, Chocolate Pear Clafoutis!  Each time I thought about this month's Sugar High Friday (a marvelous online event conceived by Jennifer at Domestic Goddess and kindly hosted this month, in its one-year anniversary edition, by Kelli at Lovescool), I felt as if I had developed an idée fixe.  The words "chocolate clafoutis" and after a day or two, "chocolate pear clafoutis" became a repetetive mantra.  I couldn't work, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat -- well, that's a lie.  But I did want to create this imagined sweet...perfectly ripe autumn pears in a rich, oozing heart of chocolate darkness.  None of the recipes I found, however, satisfied me.  My search turned up a recipe, widely published online, for Chocolate Clafoutis with Caramelized Oranges.  This was courtesy of the brash, slapdash Jamie -- and even though I'm not fond of celebrity chefs, I might have used his proportions as a place to start.  But he uses a whole cup of flour, in what should essentially be a light batter pudding, not a cake.  What would this do to the chocolate flavor, to the delicate pears?  I found other recipes, but realized that I didn't want simply a chocolate custard either.   I wanted chocolate intensity.  You might understand how I feel about chocolate, especially dark chocolate, if you were to visit me at the moment of this writing.  On my bedside table, I have two chocolate bars, one 70% with cocoa nibs, the other 60% with macadamias and cranberries.  Alongside the bars stands a ribbon-tied bag of chocolate coffee beans.  Close by is a little clear plastic box of Lake Champlain chocolate leaves and a long box of Normandy butter biscuits enrobed in dark chocolate.  And no, I didn't lay in special supplies for this evening.  That's just what I happened to see when I looked over at the table. 

While waiting for inspiration to strike in terms of devising a chocolate batter, I decided to focus on the fruit.  Pears it would be.  Ripely, gushingly in season; they have been so good this year.  Pears...pears and chocolate; it is a combination I've loved ever since my first taste of my mother's Poire Belle Helene, made with canned pears, good vanilla ice-cream, and homemade bittersweet chocolate sauce.   

I found some very lovable Bartletts at the Greenmarket, trucked down to the city from an upstate farm.  The farmers had done their part, so I did mine.  The pears were nurtured gently in a brown paper bag until they yielded, like shy but willing virgins, to the slightest pressure at their stem ends (so to speak).  They were delicious, as William Carlos Williams liked to say of plums.  I wanted to give their subtle flavor just a little bit of heightening -- the tiniest little kick.  I wanted nothing that would mask them, but something that would make them more themselves.

Somehow, I found myself in a liquor store, paying an only just bearable sum of money for a bottle that contained such beauty, I could hardly bring myself to open it.  And indeed, opening it proved quite difficult.  G was pressed into service, and the deed was done.  The sight of this drinkable objet d'art consistently provoked the obvious question, "But how do they get the pear into the bottle?"  Some of us know these things, because we stay up late at night reading obscure tracts about eaux-de-vie.  For others, however, it remains a mystery.  Whatever you may know or not know about its making, the liquid itself is delectably perfumed and quite potent. 

Once I'd gathered my fruit and spirits, the chocolate part suddenly became clear to me.  I remembered a certain warm baked chocolate pudding.  Nigella Lawson (I prefer to think of her as an excellent home cook who has achieved fame, rather than as a celebrity chef) published a recipe for Gooey Chocolate Puddings in her first book, How To Eat.  It's one that we've made and loved fairly often.  I began to dream of it with disks of extra dark chocolate bubbling under the surface,  and pears -- pears soaked in Poire William eau-de-vie.  This would be the batter for my chocolate pear dessert , even if it wasn't a true clafoutis.   Even when I'd decided, I still flirted with the idea of a chocolate  mascarpone cream, baked with pears.  I considered a custardy variation, with heavy cream and egg yolks for a perfect silken wobble.  And I may still try those too, soon, while there are still glorious pears to be had.

But in making and eating this recipe, I found this much at least to be true:  if you love dark, dark chocolate, tempered with the musk of ripe pears, this is your dessert.  You can call it chocolate pear clafoutis if you wish.  If not, I'll leave you to put words to the obsession yourself.

Chocolate Pear Clafoutis

2 small/medium just-ripe Bartlett pears
2 Tbsp. Poire William (pear eau-de-vie)
5 oz. best-quality dark chocolate (70% or more cocoa solids; I used 85%)
4 oz. unsalted butter
1 tsp. pure vanilla
4 Tbsp. flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs
good pinch of salt

24 flat dark-chocolate discs (Jacques Torres makes these)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Butter and flour 8 1-cup ramekins.  Quarter, core and slice pears into small chunks.  Toss them with poire eau-de-vie and allow them to macerate while you’re preparing the rest of the dessert.  Melt chocolate and butter together; stir in vanilla.  Beat flour, sugar and eggs together lightly but thoroughly; add a pinch of salt.  Drain the pear slices, reserving the eau-de-vie. Stir the reserved eau-de-vie into the melted chocolate, then whisk the chocolate mixture into the egg/flour/sugar batter.  Divide the pear chunks among the ramekins; top with equal portions of chocolate batter.  Slide three chocolate discs just under the surface of the batter at approximately equal intervals in each ramekin.   

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the edges are set and the tops are lightly cracked but still a tiny bit soft in the center.  Watch carefully at this point – it’s very easy to overbake these, and you want a soft, slightly molten chocolate center.  Serve right away.  Freshly whipped heavy cream, slightly sweetened and flavored with a bit of the Poire William would be a lovely accompaniment.  Good vanilla ice-cream works just as well though – the contrast of hot dessert and cold ice-cream is always a winner.

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

It's my painful charge to inform readers that posting on AFIEP may be a bit sketchy over the next couple of weeks.  My beloved iBook has been sent in for repairs to its unwell little logic board.  Apparently there've been a spate of these problems with computers of this particular vintage, which, sadly, are not even three years old.  Just toddlers, really; although in computer years, three years is apparently already middle-aged.  Fortunately I have an extended warranty -- and even more fortunately, Apple has recognized the problem and offered to look at, diagnose and if necessary, fix all iBooks of that make and model. 

But I'll tell you this.  If G couldn't fix it, it can't be fixed by anyone other than the good folks at Apple Depot.  One isn't really allowed to open the computer up and take a look at its little innards, at least not while it's still under warranty.  Doing so would render the warranty invalid. However, within the parameters of what's permitted, G (a certified Apple technician in his own right) rather miraculously managed to get it to limp along for several weeks.  It died, really died a couple of times and that man, bless his heart, resurrected it.  In most of the workplaces where he's a computer technician, people speak of him in hushed voices and think he's a genius.  He reminds me, however, that these are people who are incapable of checking to see whether or not their computer trouble stems from the fact that the machine isn't plugged in.  "Shhhh," I tell him.  "Genius is based in other people's perceptions."  Yes, ladies, it's true, and I'm sorry.  He fixes computers, washes dishes, provides the sweet lovin', and he's mine, all mine.

So for the moment, I'm borrowing his computer to work at home, check email and write an occasional post -- but my lovely pics for planned posts are backed up on an inaccessible drive at the moment.  Ahh, what plans I had for you all.  There was jam to write about (two kinds!), the glorious recipes I've recently made from other peoples' blogs, and some apple delicacies as well.  In addition, I had and have major plans for the upcoming Sugar High Friday #13 (October 21st, The Dark Side), hosted by Lovescool.  Sadly I've missed several recent SHFs, but I'd really be letting down the home team if I let the theme of Dark Chocolate go by without an entry.  And then there's IMBB #20 (October 23rd, Has My Blog Fallen? hosted by Kitchen Chick) the theme of which is soufflés.  I love soufflés, absolutely adore them.  So I'm going to do my best to make those happen.

In the meantime, please stand by.   

In Defense of Maligned Vegetables: Velvet Cauliflower-Leek Soup

Who determines, and for what strange reason, the social status of a vegetable?
        -- M.F.K. Fisher

So begins the section entitled "Selected Vegetable History" in the back of Claudia Manz's darling chapbook of vegetable poems, "The Last One Eaten: A Maligned Vegetable History".  Imagine my surprise when about a month ago, I received an email from a blog reader in Colorado, requesting my address so that she could mail me a copy of her book.  And then (having forgotten about it and certainly forgotten that I sent her my work address)  imagine my further surprise upon receiving this dear gift in my mailbox at work, no less. 

In addition, I received a beautiful letter from the author, which I won't share with you since she says too many nice things about this blog and I'm going to struggle against shameless self-promotion, at least here at home.  Suffice it to say that she mentions apricot curd, ratatouille and roast cauliflower.  This delightful person is not only a poet, but also cooks for people recovering from illness or chemotherapy.  Hence her use of many vegetables (all those yummy anti-oxidants).  It seems Claudia's friends and acquaintances have at times turned up their noses at her concotions of roots, tubers, seedpods, fungi, and our friends the sweetly cruciferous flowers, so she penned these verses in defense of her vegetable loves.  I'm sure her cuisine serves the same purpose, since she speaks in her letter of having both her culinary clients and friends at dinner parties come to the realization that they actually like vegetables. 

Although G is one of those who has a fair list of vegetable loathes (onions, avocado, eggplant, mushrooms, olives, beets), fortunately there are also many that he does love -- and some that he has been persuaded to like.  Strong in the first category is cauliflower, and a front-runner in the second would be leeks, both of which composed the backbone of yesterday's soup.  So here is a new recipe:  Velvet Caulflower-Leek Soup.  Claudia, this one's for you. 

Velvet Cauliflower-Leek Soup

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
2 large leeks, washed, trimmed and thinly sliced
4 shallots, finely chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 large head of cauliflower, cleaned and broken into small florets
2 cups milk
3-4 cups water
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. dried dill weed (or fresh dill, should you happen to have some)
grating of fresh nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 - 1 cup heavy cream (optional, or may be replaced with light cream or half-and-half)
Snipped fresh dill for garnish

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large soup pot, and saute the leeks and shallots until tender and translucent.  Add the potatoes and cauliflower, cumin, paprika, and cayenne, and let everything fry up gently for a couple of minutes.  Pour the milk into the pot with the vegetables, and add just enough water to barely cover everything.  Add the dill, and cook until everything is quite tender, about 15 minutes.  Grate in some fresh nutmeg.  Puree about half of the soup in the blender.  This puree will have a perfect, velvety texture.  You could puree all of it, if you wish, but I like both a creamy and chunky texture, so I puree half of it and mix it through the remaining chunky soup.  If you have fresh dill, you can toss some more in the blender at the end of pureeing, and just pulse it through till finely chopped.  At this point you can add cream if you wish.  Cream is certainly very luxurious and delicious, and even though we used it, I'm sure it's not absolutely necessary; the soup is pretty creamy and rich-tasting on its own.  If you do add the cream, wait until it's mixed through to adjust seasoning before serving. 

This is especially delicious with homemade parmesan cheese croutons.  And a grilled cheese sandwich alongside wouldn't go amiss either. 

Mulligatawny, or Love Medicine

"...I still like to think that there are many rooms in the house of
poetry, and sooner or later we'll all meet over mulligatawny in the kitchen:
slam poets and psalm poets, page poets and stage poets..."
        - Janus Kodal

It all started with a scratchy throat a week or so ago.  A night or two after, I started to sneeze.  By Thursday, I knew I was ordering soup for dinner at the Thai restaurant where we were meeting friends for dinner.  Friday, after several pitiful sneezing fits and sporting a nose that couldn't have been redder if I'd used steel wool instead of a hanky, I was sent home midday from work.  By Friday night, G was starting to sneeze, and by Saturday we'd eaten our way through takeout soups ranging from simple wonton to Dominican chicken sancocho, Mexican tortilla-cilantro and on to chicken-coconut Tom Kha Gai. 

We were tired of them all, and yet we still wanted soup, soup and only soup, perhaps with a bit of bread.  So it was with soup in mind that I dragged myself from our sorry shared sickbed late Saturday afternoon,  to see what the pantry had to offer.  After all, I had brought the germs home, and clearly needed to provide medicine for us both.  Oh happy circumstance:  it appeared that I had everything I would need for a mulligatawny, which I could cobble together after reading a few online recipes and digging through my memory of mulligatawnys I had known and liked in the past.  According to existing literature on the subject, mulligatawny (from the Tamil for "pepper water") is a bit of a kitchen sink supper, having many versions.  Soup as a course by itself was not part of India's traditional cuisine.  Apparently the British who lived and colonized there a century or so ago wanted soup, and something like this is more or less what they got. 

For G and myself in our mutual, miserable nose-blowing state, this was a perfect remedy: exotic, spicy enough to allow us breathing room, yet very, very comforting.  We brought our tray, which held nothing but a basket of toasted spiced naan bread and our bowls of this soup into bed with us, and amidst comforters, pillows, old movies and each other, the healing began.     

My Own Mulligatawny

The ingredient list here seems a little daunting, I know, especially if you're not feeling a hundred percent.  However, you won't believe how quickly this soup goes together.  Like so many good soups and stews, each spoonful allows you to beam with the accomplishment of a dish that is truly delicious, yet requires minimal effort. This recipe is, of course, easily adapted to a vegetarian (dare I say vegan?) version by simply using vegetable stock in place of chicken, and omitting the chopped cooked chicken at the end.

1 tablespoon clarified butter or vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium leeks, washed, cleaned and chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom, or 4 bruised pods
2 bay leaves
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large apple - peeled, cored, and chopped
1 large potato, peeled and diced
1 1/2 cups red lentils
8 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
2 cups coconut milk
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Heat ghee or vegetable oil in a large pot (use low heat); cook onion and leeks until softened and translucent.  Add garlic, ginger, and spices, stirring, until mixture is browned lightly and fragrant. Add carrot, apple, and potato; saute for a few minutes.  Add red lentils and chicken stock to the pot; simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes or until vegetables are just tender. Discard cardamom pods and bay leaves; stir in tomato paste and cook a few minutes longer. Blend or process half of the soup mixture, in batches, until pureed; return to the pot.  This gives you a smooth, velvety soup with some vegetable chunks for texture. Add tamarind and coconut milk;  heat through and adjust seasoning.   Stir in chopped chicken and heat gently; add fresh chopped coriander leaves just before serving.  Garnish with more coriander -- chopped or in sprigs, as you like. 

 

Five out of Twenty Three: A Meme

Alanna of the lovely blog A Veggie Venture tagged me for the 23/5 meme, in which one goes back into blog archives to one's 23rd post, lights upon the fifth sentence of said post, and delves for deeper meaning.  Ahhh, here we go: 

"As I've mentioned before on this site, shopping was more difficult."

There I am,  yammering once again about the things I can't find in our neighborhood.  However, context is a gem.  I wrote this while talking about some of the places we had discovered in East Harlem when we moved here upon leaving Park Slope.  This particular post was to celebrate our yummiest local bakery, La Tropezienne, which remains a favorite stop whenever we walk up First Avenue to treat ourselves to a pie at the one and only original Patsy's Pizzeria on First and 117th. 

Pondering the line again, however, I'm thinking about the fact that after two years here in El Barrio (or as the glam set would say, SpaHa), we've just decided to renew our lease for another two.  Our slumlord (whom we recently discovered listed as number three on a site called NYC's Worst Landlords) has, for some reason, decided to charge us only a standard rent stabilization hike.  This is strange because he made it clear to us when we signed our first lease that our apartment is not stabilized, which means that he could have gone up to the "luxury" guideline he has listed on the lease rider.  It's also strange because when you read the press about him, it's pretty clear that his heartstrings were not tugged by our or indeed anyone's tales of woe.   The answer must lie in the fact that he's busy with his 1400 (no exaggeration) code violations, and has decided not to tempt fate.  In any case, it works in our favor, at least for the moment.  Our apartment is spacious and reasonably (albeit cheaply) renovated, although our building maintenance is virtually non-existent.  But at the moment, we're simply not willing to deal with the effort or expense of moving. 

So for the moment, we're staying put.  Who knows what may happen in two years?  We could decide to move to the Left Coast, since we left our hearts in San Francisco (and New Orleans!) this summer.  For all we know, good-hearted politicians may actually win elections and decide that both of us are urgently needed as education and technology liaisons on their cabinets, necessitating an immediate move to a nexus of power.   Then again, we might win the Lotto and set sail for Alaska and Bali and the south of France.  But for now, we have neighbors to greet and some small rootlets in what has come to feel like our community.  What with Greenmarket excursions, weekly trips to Fairway and local markets that have begun to stock organic milk, as well as an occasional foray into the understocked, overpriced yet convenient Gourmet Garage, we've found our way through some of our shopping obstacles.   And if things feel overwhelming for any reason, there's always pastry, as my 23rd post so kindly reminds me. 

I've actually done a bit of searching to find someone to pass this on to, but I have a feeling that just about everyone who would be inclined to play has been tagged.  If I'm wrong, well -- I'm leaving the baton on the table, so pick it up and play at your will. 

For G, With Love and Squalor...

...and apologies to J.D. Salinger.  One year ago on Tuesday, G and I went  down to City Hall and plighted our troth as domestic partners. We did it for practical reasons, yet the occasion took on a certain solemnity and joy as we stood together on line, awaiting our turn to pay $36 in order to have some sort of legal status.    We kept looking at each other with all these different sorts of glances -- at certain moments like naughty schoolchildren, at others with these deep, I-want-to-make-a-promise-to-you  looks.  Afterward, we went out for Indian food, just the two of us, and felt very, very happy.  As the days passed, we let people know that we had taken this step, little by little.  My aging father had his own way of translating the event.   A few days after I explained it to him, one of his caregivers congratulated me.  "Your dad says you and G are engaged," she said.  When I laughingly described this exchange to G, he stopped me and said, "No, your dad's got it right." 

So here we are, a calendar year into our delightfully domestic partnership, although we've known each other for five years and been living together for three.  The photo above shows the delights with which G surprised me on the day of our DP anniversary, in addition to some of our messy kitchen. Thanks, my love, for the treats, love and squalor -- we wouldn't have it any other way, would we?