A Finger in Every Pie

SHF #6: Sunrise Caramel Shortbread

"It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel. "
    -- David Leavitt

"Brown sugar lassie,
Caramel treat,
Honey-gold baby
Sweet enough to eat.”
    -- Langston Hughes

I was thrilled when Debbie of Words to Eat By announced SHF #6:  Stuck on You, with a theme of caramel.  As food textures go, I’ve always been a big fan of all things chewy:  nougat, sticky-type brownies and blondies, soft toffees, and of course, caramel.  My caramel loves come in many guises, though, not just chewy ones.  I love the flavor of caramel, not just the chew-factor.  I’m fond of hard-candy caramels (like the Spanish caramelo which means any and all hard candy), caramel sauces, crème caramel, caramelized fruit a la upside-down cake…you name it, I like it (except maybe for banana upside-down cake, but that story’s already been told).  And I always look for the square dark chocolate in an assorted box, since that shape often signals a chewy caramel. 

Early on, I dreamed ambitious caramel dreams.  I had in mind a tart, with a crumbly, melting nut crust, a layer of caramel or dulce de leche, then pastry cream perhaps flavored with blood orange, and a sunburst topping of caramelized fresh pineapple rings.  I even went so far as to buy the pineapple.  But it was not to be.  Time escaped me.  It slipped through my fingers as fluidly as the moat of syrupy caramel that surrounds a newly-unmolded flan.  Family crises, work necessities, in short, life – a sweet life, albeit a busy one – all intervened.  So I found myself this week at the eleventh hour having to cut back on my honeyed vision.

I decided on a version of Millionaire’s Shortbread – that sin-worthy treat comprised of a layer of shortbread, my favorite chewy-type caramel and chocolate.  Millionaires and paupers alike have posted a veritable million versions of this treat online – some calling for milk chocolate, others for dark, some for cream-based caramel fillings, others for slow-cooked milk caramel.  As a starting point, I used Nigella Lawson’s criminally rich recipe:  Roxanne’s Millionaire’s Shortbread from How to Be a Domestic Goddess.  I wanted to change it up a little, make it my own.

I still had just one blood orange in the fridge, crying out to be used – and I thought its flavor would meld well with the flavors of my planned cookie/bar/slice.  So I made a garnish:  candied blood orange slices, to be cut into tiny segments for the top of each bar.  I added a touch of ginger and a pinch of cayenne to the sugar syrup, all to good effect.  The slices glacéed beautifully, keeping their color and shape.  I let them dry for a night, and the next night made the shortbread layer, enhanced with the grated zest of a very large navel orange.  Next I tried making the caramel.  I had what I thought was the brilliant idea of substituting the syrup left from the blood orange slices for some of the corn syrup in the recipe.  It was tangy and peppery – I thought it would give the caramel a great flavor.  And it probably would have, except that it upset the chemistry of the recipe.  The caramel, which is made in the microwave, curdled.  It was not the satiny mass I had envisioned pouring over my lovely orange-scented shortbread layer.  I tossed the cruddy caramel out, soaked the dishes and went to bed.  There was always the next night. 

Which turned out to be the next day – even better.  By a stroke of good fortune, I didn’t go to work.  The subway wasn’t running due to a switching problem, and after three hours of trying to get to work, I gave up, went home, and started making caramel again.  This time I adhered to the recipe (and yes, I use the microwave despite the fact that my-cousin-the-doctor has told me that microwaves are dangerous because they change the molecular structure of food.  G’s comment:  “Maybe it changes the molecular structure in a good way.  How do we know?”)  At the very end, when I had my silky bowl of caramel, I fooled around again, adding sea salt, vanilla and orange oil.  It tasted great, and the texture was lovely as I poured it onto its shortbread pallet.  In a trice I melted the dark chocolate, poured that layer on, and let the whole thing set while I ran off to teach a grad seminar.  I came back to cut, garnish and photograph, and after dinner the moment of truth arrived as we actually tasted the bars.  First bite – they’re delicious.  Second bite -- they’re rich.  Very rich.  And very sweet.  I ate a second one, and kinda wished I hadn’t.  In fact, having cut a 9” square pan into 24 bars, I later thought that each of those pieces would be better cut in half, into tiny rectangles.   They’re lovely in small doses, which means they’ll last a long time, hopefully.  In the meantime, I’ll be bringing a plateful into work today, to see what my colleagues think. 

Sunrise Caramel Shortbread
(adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Roxanne’s Millionaire’s Shortbread)

1 blood orange
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
pinch or two of cayenne pepper

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
zest of one large navel orange
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (frightening but true)
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon orange oil (Boyajian’s preferred)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp.  fleur de sel or other sea salt
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Cut the orange into neat 1/4 inch slices.  Combine the sugar, water, Grand Marnier, ginger and cayenne in a pot, and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture boils for a minute or two.  Add the orange slices, bring back to the boil and then cook at a tiny simmer for about an hour, until the slices are candied and the syrup is reduced to a few tablespoons.  Put the slices on waxed paper or parchment to dry, and leave them out overnight.  Cut them into small sections and reserve (I made six segments each out of 4 orange slices to decorate 24 bars).      

Preheat the oven to 325º.

Put the flour, sugar, salt and orange zest into a food processor fitted with the metal blade.  Pulse a few times to blend.  Put in 12 tablespoons of the butter cut in chunks, and pulse until you have a crumbly dough (you could of course do this by hand or with a pastry cutter). Press this sandy shortbread mixture into a 9-inch square pan that has been greased and the bottom lined with parchment paper; smooth it with your hands or a spatula. Prick it with a fork and cook for 5 minutes, then lower the oven to 300º, and cook for a further 30-40 minutes until it is pale golden and no longer doughy. Let it cool in the pan.

Melt the remaining 12 tablespoons of butter for 2-3 minutes, then add the condensed milk and syrup. Whisk the mixture well until the butter is thoroughly incorporated. Heat in the microwave for 6-7 minutes until it is boiling, stirring thoroughly every 30 seconds (this is a bit tedious, but it takes lots less time than making milk caramel on the stove). It's ready when it's thickened and turned a rich golden brown: caramel color, of course. Beat in the sea salt, vanilla and orange oil.  Pour this lush caramel evenly over the cooled shortbread and leave it to set.

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt it in a bowl in the microwave. Pour and spread it over the caramel layer (the less you touch it, the shinier it will be) and leave it to cool. Once set, cut the caramel shortbread into pieces. Decorate each square with a candied blood orange segment.  The squares can be stored in the fridge during the summer, or just in a covered tin or container during cool weather.  They’re good for at least a week, but can also be frozen for up to six months.

Gentle Persuasion: Overcoming Food Prejudices

"I'm just a promiscuous eater...I can't establish a long-term  relationship with any one food. It's the gastro version of Looking For Mr. Goodbar.  I pick all these foods, and eventually they turn on me."
     - Jim Steinman, songwriter

When Jim Steinman made the above statement, it was in explanation of a huge, all-encomapassing order in a Chinese restaurant.  That causes me to think that he was using the term "promiscuous eater" to describe his greed.  I too consider myself a promiscuous eater, but not in the sense of being greedy (which may also be true of me on occasion).  I think of it as being willing to experiment, to try new things, to work at overcoming any minor distastes.  There are a lot of foods that G claims he doesn't like.   But I have found over time that he too is something of a promiscuous eater.  He'll try things, even when he first greets the notion with a face or an "ewwwww..." 

Ever since Molly of the gorgeous blog Orangette posted a recipe for her friend Doron's meatballs a month or so ago, I've wanted to try them.  There were a few sticking points.  The first one was mine:  they have raisins in them.  I'm not a huge fan of sweet and savory foods together, although I've been overcoming this.  (Despite my efforts in this direction, I hope never to eat pineapple on pizza or tongue in raisin sauce.)  I find that a moderate amount of tangy dried fruit works out okay in meat dishes, especially when it's balanced by lots of savory notes like garlic, onion, cilantro and cumin, as in Molly's recipe.  The second issue was onions -- G will of course eat foods with onion in them (since otherwise I would have to stop cooking altogether), but he's not a fan of the flavor of raw onions.  I dealt with this by sauteeing the onions before adding them to the meat mix, so I could gentle their flavor a little.  The recipe also contained toasted pinenuts, which I adore.  G wandered into the kitchen as I was mixing the meat and cocked an eyebrow.  "What's wrong?" I asked.  "Hmmm....well, you know I'm not much of a pinenut guy," he said.  But he hastened to say, "I'm sure these will be good, honey."

Then, however, we got to the final frontier:  yogurt sauce.  G professes to hate yogurt other than Trix Yogurt, a noxious concoction which I assume is composed of flavored processed yogurt and luridly colored cereal.  It has never been my misfortune to have an encounter any closer than the supermarket's dairy case with this faux-yogurt disaster.   (G has since corrected my ill-informed idea about cereal -- apparently there's none in the yogurt.  It's called Trix because the yogurt itself is luridly colored, and there are TWO colors in each container -- ooooohhhh.  Or do I mean ewwwwww...)

My removal of the container of plain, whole-milk Greek yogurt from the fridge occasioned an almost involuntary "ewwwww" from my darling.  "I'm going to make a delicious sauce out of this -- it has things you like too, like garlic and cumin."  G shrugged.  Well, he didn't have to eat the sauce.  If he liked the meatballs, that would be good enough for me.  I've often tried to appeal to logic by reminding him of his unbridled passion for Indian food, which is a cuisine that could not exist without onions and yogurt.  Logic is not the answer when it comes to food dislikes, I've found. 

I made side dishes that I knew would appeal -- broccoli with garlic and hot red pepper flakes, orzo with butter and grated cheese.   I plated it all up, with a bowl of yogurt sauce which I assumed would be just for me.  G ate some dinner.  "Yummy," he said.  Then with no prompting, he reached over and dipped a meatball into the bowl of yogurt sauce.  "You're having some?" I said in surprise.  "Well, of course I'll try it," he said.  He ate it.  With no comment, he dipped another meatball in the sauce.  And again.  I was not cunning enough to hide my triumph.   "Ummm...soooo,  you like the yogurt sauce," I said.  He looked at me with that "don't give me any I-told-you-so crap" look, reached over and gave me a long kiss, and then continued eating, orzo, broccoli, meatballs -- and yogurt sauce.  Who knows?  At this rate, I have hope that mushrooms, olives and avocadoes may someday appear on our joint menus, rather than being forced to exile on my plate alone...

Across The Great Divide

I've yammered on at some length about the fact that there are some things that I like to buy and that we like to eat which simply aren't available in our neighborhood -- but that has changed.  As of a couple of weeks ago, we now have a Gourmet Garage in Spanish Harlem.  Of course, they'd probably say they're in Carnegie Hill or Upper Yorkville (depending on what's the most fashionable realtor-speak at the moment) or if they're trying to appeal to the set who likes to have street credibility, they might say SpaHa, which is El Barrio's moniker du jour.  But as far as I'm concerned, they're on the north side of 96th Street, right where Park Avenue starts to go downhill, both in terms of literal terrain and real-estate dollar values -- but not in the sense of a great neighborhood with a lot of history, heart, funk and flava.  East Harlem:  the Great Divide has been crossed.  And the heart of the matter is that I now have a reasonbly local place to buy what G likes to refer to as my "Yuppie F*cko Organic Gringo Groceries".  And you'll notice that he doesn't complain when the meals are ready.   I'm now within walking distance of organic milk, creme fraiche, imported cheese, artisanal bread, good olive oil, etc.   The down side is that they're pricey and they're small, relative to the acres of bounty available at my beloved Fairway.  So no, GG has not replaced Fairway in my affections -- but sheer convenience can be a real blessing on occasion.       

I was walking up Park Avenue the other day, from the Carnegie Hill side toward East Harlem, planning on a quick Gourmet Garage stop on my way home.  Two Upper East Side mommies were trilling excitedly about the wonders available at GG.  "Have you tried the baguettes?" one shrieked.  "Oh, I know, and the CHEESES!" the other one swooned.  Her preteen offspring viewed her with disgust.  "God, mom, you are so pathetic if that's what excites you," he said.  I like to think of myself as street-fightin' woman, but sudden revelation was upon me.  This is what excites me also, therefore...I too am pathetic.  Such a moment of self-knowledge can be quite crushing.  But it doesn't last, especially against the cheer imparted by finding my favorite imported-from-Edinburgh shortbread fingers on the Gourmet Garage's shelves.