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Now I’ve done it. The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow Farm requests that all visiting fellows give a day of volunteer service for every thirty days of their stay.  Last week I received a very nice letter from the director of the Colony, asking me to brainstorm some ideas for what I’d like to do for my volunteer work.  Since I figured that of the dozens of thoughts one can float in a brainstorm, very few of them will stick, I wrote some charming nonsense about giving a baking demonstration in the kitchen (the Colony has a spiffy demo kitchen, donated by Kitchen Aid).  I could make a nice custard or three!  I can make brioche!  I can make regular old white sandwich bread, one with eggs, one without, so that we can see just what eggs bring to a dough!  While I’m doing this, I can give a little lecture of the development of egg cookery in patisserie!  I can mention, just as a sidebar, the use of eggs in Asian desserts, particularly in Thai cookery, which puts duck eggs to beautiful and imaginative use!

You’d think that after well over 30 years of my mother reminding me that words have consequences, I would have learned by now...but noooooo.  The director thinks that this is a brilliant idea.  Friends, it looks like I’m teaching a baking demo on Our Friend the Egg, with corresponding historical observations.  I’ve never even assisted at a demo, much less taught one.  Fear, trepidation, dry mouth, high school’s most embarrassing moments flashing before my eyes.  I must have been high, dear friends, I must have been totally hopped up on goofballs, the day I said to myself that this was a good idea.

If I am even more silent than usual in the coming weeks, it is not due to sloth, indifference or lack of love for my darling pals in the blogiverse, but rather to the copious amounts of research I will be doing to maintain this illusion of capability I seem to be casting.

The future looks bright.The Five Questions live on at mmm, iced water.  Go visit Audrey and see what she had to say in response to the questions I asked her.  And whatever you do, do not miss her observations on the kola nut.

The Contentment That Only a Hot Dish Can Bring: In response to Snowball‘s ode to creamed spinach, I was going to e her a recipe for the best creamed spinach I know, but then I thought, heck, why should we be the only two to have the fun?

I keep promising to write a nice chewy post about the late Laurie Colwin, who was one of my favorite writers and who I still miss on a daily basis, nearly 12 years after her untimely death.  Tonight is not going to be the night for it, but in the meantime I can share with you my variation of her creamed spinach with jalapeno peppers, a recipe she received from a woman named Betty Josey, and which appears in her first collection of food essays, Home Cooking:  A Writer in the Kitchen.  This recipe serves eight “regular” eaters, 12 eaters of delicate appetite or 4-6 fans of creamed spinach. 

You will need two packages of frozen spinach (you can substitute four bags of fresh spinach if you’d prefer, but since this is getting baked, the difference in using fresh vs. frozen spinach is pretty much miniscule); four tablespoons of unsalted butter; two tablespoons of flour; one small yellow onion, chopped; one clove of garlic, minced; 1/2 cup of evaporated milk; 3/4 teaspoon kosher or seasoned salt (Ms. Colwin specifies celery salt, but I usually use a blend of salt and roasted Sichuan pepper, ground together); 6 ounces of Monterey Jack cheese, either regular or jalapeno Jack, cut into cubes; chopped pickled jalapeno peppers to taste*; buttered bread crumbs (optional).

*Mrs. Josey’s original recipe calls for jalapeno Jack.  At the time Ms. Colwin wrote the recipe (1987), jalapeno cheese was hard to find up north, so she substituted regular Jack and pickled jalapenos.  These days, jalapeno cheese seems to be easier to find, but because I like this very peppery, I use pepper Jack and a couple of pickled jalapenos.  You can add or omit either of these ingredients depending on your palate.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  Butter a casserole dish.

If you are the type of cook who is good at planning ahead (I’m not), you can just thaw the spinach and squeeze out the liquid.  You will need at least one cup of spinach liquid.  If you are not a planner-aheader, then cook the spinach according to the package directions.  Drain and squeeze the spinach, reserving a cup of liquid.  Either way, chop the spinach after you squeeze the liquid out.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.  Add the flour, stir it in and let it cook a bit, stirring all the while, but do not let it brown.  (For you gumbo fans out there, you are aiming for white roux, not blond.) Add the onion and garlic and cook for a minute or two, until they begin to give off a little fragrance.  Again, no browning.

Slowly add the cup of reserved spinach liquid and stir to blend.  Add the evaporated milk, salt, cheese and pickled jalapenos, if using.  Mix everything together well.  Add the spinach and mix together well again.

Turn the contents of the pan into the buttered casserole.  Top with buttered bread crumbs, if you are using.  Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.

The always-astute Calgal recommends eating creamed spinach atop a baked potato, which sounds like the most wonderful idea.  I’m picturing a nice big Idaho russet, skin scrubbed with salt, baked in a hot oven, taken out, smashed so that the interior gets all fluffy, skin pinched so that that fluffy interior pooches out, all ready to be topped with spinach. Mmm.  (Incidentally, do not ever, ever, ever, ever wrap your potatoes in foil when you bake them.  If you wrap them in foil, they will steam, not bake, and the skin will never crisp up in that delightful way that it does.  Foil-wrapped potatoes are a restaurant affectation and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.  Well, if they’re not, they should be.  They’re just wrong, in any event.) If you’re not a baked potato fan, this spinach would also be very nice atop a bowl of soft polenta.  If you are not an eater of potatoes or polenta, well, you’ve come to the wrong blog.  We’re all about the carbohydrates here.

Dear friends,

In the not too-distant future…there was a guy named Joel, not too different from you or me…okay, enough of that, before someone gets wise and sues my plagiarizing tuchus.  In the not-too-distant future, I will be headed out of town, powered by Amtrak, down to beautiful uptown Havre de Grace, Maryland, where my dad and stepmom will be throwing their housewarming party.  Vittles will be consumed.  Drinks will be drunk.  Long walks along the Chesapeake will be taken.  Yet another chocolate orgasm will be had by me.  Contentment will reign supreme.

As I was looking for something to read on the train (I decided on Iris Murdoch, Kenneth Atchity, the Saveur 100 and yet another damn book about eggs), I came across my copy of Cod:  A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky.  This was another train book for me, the book I read on my last trip home from Pittsburgh last August.  I spent much of that trip flirting with the conductor, a game young man who gave me some gentle abuse for one of the cd’s I brought with me (“there is someone out there who actually owns the Len cd?”), then forgave me when he saw all the Teardrop Explodes cd’s I’d brought with me.  He asked what I was reading.  I proffered Cod, at which he heaped even more abuse on me (“Cod.  A biography of the fish that changed the world.  This is what you’re reading.”).  I dared him to read to the entire car the poem on the page I’d been reading, thinking he could only take this shtick so far.  He called my bluff, read the poem in a voice one part Dick Cavett and one part Brian Blessed, and was given a round of applause for his efforts. 

I’m remembering this now because, in light of how I’ve been spending my time recently, it is an appropriate and prescient poem to share with you.  Mark Kurlansky attributes it to an “anonymous American poet.” To Todd the conductor guy, wherever you are, I’m thinking of you very fondly indeed.

Without further ado…

The codfish lays a thousand eggs
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you what she’s done.
And so we scorn the codfish
While the humble hen we prize
Which only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise.

Have a sublime weekend, dear ones.

From the “Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t I?” Department:  Although I am generally resistant to quizzes, my inner bookworm could not resist Blue Pyramid’s Book Quiz, which I found via Courtney and Snowball:

You’re The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you’re interested in war, what you really want to know is what
causes war. You’re out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they
really are. Nevertheless, you’re always living in the past and have a hard time dealing
with what’s going on today. You’re also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in
the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can
diplomats."


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Curious.  Amusing.  Not inaccurate.  So I decided to move on to the even-more intriguing Country Quiz:

You’re Lebanon!

Your room’s a mess.  Your house is a mess.  Heck, your life
is a mess.  It all used to be really beautiful, and someone even compared you to Paris
once, but that’s all been replaced with heartache and struggle.  You’re small, have been
influenced by outsiders for too long, and don’t know what to think about religion.  At
least you smell rather pleasant!
Take
the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Accurate.  (Except for the part about being “small,” which I haven’t been since I was a fetus.  Really.  I’ve seen turkeys that were smaller than I was at birth.) Perceptive.  Scary.  I have to hide under my desk now.

Leave it to the lovely Snowball to ask the question guaranteed to bring a smile to every bakerina’s face (oh, get out of the gutter already, you perverts).  Last night I posted pictures of our new loaf of rice bread, source of the world’s best toast.  “Where are the instructions?” quoth our Snowball.  Why, here they are.

(The kind and intrepid Pauly D has asked if there will be recipes for raisin-nut bread and jalapeno and cheese bread.  I could be persuaded, yes.  Let me do a little digging.)

As I mentioned last night, this recipe is a variant form of that found in Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  I say it’s a variant form because I play with this formula a lot.  I have made smaller loaves, larger loaves, loaves with a greater proportion of rice to flour, more salt, less salt.  I am currently working on a long-rise version, one in which the total quantity of yeast is reduced and the rising times are longer.  In general, long-rising bread has a better flavor and texture than bread leavened with hyperactive amounts of yeast.  (I will spare you the exhaustive bloviating about this topic, one of my favorite topics about which to bloviate exhaustively, but trust me, I can go on and on with little provocation.) If it works out, I will be sure to share, so if this is all you want to know about rice bread, consider this fair warning.  In the meantime, here is the boilerplate recipe I use.  The proportions, except where noted, are Mrs. David’s, but the words are mine.

One brief note on the tin:  One of the most maddening things about recipes for panned breads is when they don’t specify a tin size.  Most of my bread tins are either 8 1/2"x 4”, too small for this recipe, or 10 1/2"x 5 1/2”, too large.  9"x 5” is about right, but these pans are hard to find.  Last year I bought a Kaiser La Forme loaf tin measuring approximately 9 3/8"x 4 1/2”.  I’d bought it because I needed an 8-cup loaf pan to make a Trianon, the signature chocolate cake of the late Patisserie Colette on East 68th Street, but I have since discovered that it’s the perfect size for a loaf of rice bread.

You will need: 

3 oz. (1/2 cup) white rice, rinsed (I use basmati, but Mrs. David says that other varieties of rice, such as jasmine, Arborio or Patna will also work)

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) + 250 ml (1 cup) water

18 oz. (approximately 3 1/2 dip-and-sweep cups) unbleached all-purpose or bread flour (sold in the UK as strong flour)

1 teaspoon active dry yeast or 3/4 teaspoon instant yeast (plus additional water to dissolve if you’re using active dry)

2 teaspoons - 1 tablespoon kosher or fine sea salt, to taste (yes, this means you have to taste a little raw dough.  Don’t be squeamish.  It won’t hurt you, and you can always spit it out if it really spooks you.)

Cook the rice in the 375 ml of water until all of the water is absorbed and the rice is fluffy.  Measure the flour into your work bowl.  Add the rice to the flour while it is still hot and incorporate it thoroughly.  If you are using instant yeast, mix it directly into the rice and flour.  (If you are using active dry yeast, proof it in a little water and add it to the flour when you add the rest of the liquid.) Dissolve the salt into the 250 ml water and mix it into the flour and rice.  Add the a.d. yeast, if using. Mix everything together well.  This is a sticky dough, one that doesn’t require a lot of kneading.  If you have a stand mixer, you can pretty much mix it using the paddle attachment.  If you are mixing by hand, don’t be nervous; just keep your hands well-buttered and be patient.  Either way, once you are done mixing, turn the dough into a well-buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to ferment for 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Butter your bread tin.  Flour your work surface well and turn out the dough.  Knead it a few times, just to make it a bit less sticky and more coherent.  Form dough into a log shape, place it in the tin, re-cover with plastic wrap and let proof until the dough is about 1 inch over the top of the tin (check it after 1/2 hour, but it may need longer, depending on the warmth of your kitchen).  Set a rack in the middle of your oven.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

When the dough is ready, brush the top of the loaf with melted butter.  Bake for 15 minutes at 450, then turn the oven down to 400 and bake for an additional 15 minutes.  Take the loaf out of the oven, turn in out of the tin and return it to the oven for 20 minutes, to bake the loaf through and to color the crust.  If the crust gets too dark too fast, tent it with foil.  Be sure to let the loaf cool all the way down before cutting into it! This is a very moist loaf, and if you cut into it while it is still warm, the crumb will be gummy. I usually let it sit overnight before cutting into it.  Last night I did not, which is why the bottom crust looks lopsided in the photo.

Cut.  Toast.  (Because of the butter, the crust will take on color faster than the crumb, but as long as you are watchful, it will not actually burn, plus you will get a nice contrast of caramelized flavors in your toast.) Butter.  Salt.  Eat.  You’re welcome. 

Dear friends,

Yet another low-profile week, yet another set of profuse apologies.  I am up to my figurative elbows in egg history, lore and trivia.  I will be back properly, I swear it.

In the meantime, I am happy to share some quick visuals on some actual fruit-bearing labor.  When I thought I couldn’t read one more textbook extolling the virtues of lecithin in egg yolks, I put the laptop down, took a deep cleansing breath, and went into the kitchen to fix us a nice loaf of rice bread, courtesy of Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  Mrs. David, in turn, credits Eliza Acton’s English Bread Book as the inspiration for her recipe.

If you think it looks good, well, dears, you should only taste it.  It is not only one of the best loaves of bread I know how to make, it is also one of the easiest.  We are having it for our chicken sandwiches tonight, but really, the best way to eat it is as toast, lavishly buttered, lightly salted.  You can add the jelly or jam of your choice—apricot jam is very nice on this toast, particularly if your apricot jam is enriched with brandy and hazelnuts—but in my opinion, to jelly it is to guild the lily.  Butter, salt, amen, full stop.

View from the top crust:

View from the side crust:

View from the inside: