Tag Archives: food

Nun’s Puffs

6 Nov

Let’s start with the name, shall we? After much searching, I am still completely clueless as to how these delightful little pastries came to gain their rather fetching name. We can speculate, of course, but that’s all we’d be doing, and it seems almost beside the point to try and create a juicy backstory for these little numbers. Especially when, instead of looking around for naming clues, you should be spending your time baking up a batch of nun’s puffs. No, like right now.

With a texture poised somewhere between a choux pastry puff and a popover, only less crisply dry and more eggy in the middle, the nun’s puff might be my new favorite breakfast treat. Because of their relative simplicity, ingredient-wise, they are prime candidates for dressing up in any manner you choose. The richness of the butter, combined with the slight custardy flavor of the eggs, is the prefect backdrop for both savory and sweet applications. The outsides, so crisp and light, mingle delightfully with the airy and soft middle, because of the relative hollowness of the pastry’s middle, you can fill them with any number of things. I stuffed my serving with scrambled eggs, topped with a nice scoop of fried apples’n’onions (thank you, Almanzo Wilder), while my son slathered his with raspberry preserves. Both were absolutely delicious. I also sprinkled half of the puffs with cinnamon sugar before I baked them, and the resulting puffs emerged with a lovely lid of cinnamon crunch perched on top.

For as splendid as these puffs look, they are a cinch to make. Because they are baked in a common muffin pan, you don’t need a special pan, as you do with popovers, and you don’t need to fuss around with the oven, as you do with cream puffs. You mix, portion out, then bake. What greets you after 30 minutes is a dozen of the most spectacular baked goods you’ve ever seen straight from the oven, craggly, tall, and light as a feather.

Last Year: Sweet and Spicy Popcorn

Nun’s Puffs Recipe

From Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup milk

¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

optional: 2 teaspoons sugar mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Thoroughly butter a 12-portion muffin pan, being sure to butter the edges of the cups and around the top.

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. When butter had melted, stir in milk and raise heat to medium.. Bring the mixture to a light boil, then add the flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Continue to cook and stir the mixture until it comes together in a cohesive ball. Remove from heat, transfer dough to a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes.

When dough has cooled a bit, add the eggs, one at a time, beating for about a minute after each addition. You can beat the egg into the dough with a wooden spoon, a handheld mixer on medium speed, or a stand mixer fitted with the flat beater attachment on medium-low speed. After the last egg has been beaten in, the mixture should resemble an extremely thick, stiff cake or muffin batter.

Divide the dough evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full. If using, sprinkle the tops of the dough with cinnamon sugar.

Bake in center of oven for about 30 minutes, or until the puffs are tall, golden brown, craggly on top, and very puffy. Remove each puff from the pan immediately, and allow to cool slightly on a wire rack. Serve while still hot or warm.

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Roasted Cauliflower and Black Bread Gratin

1 Nov

It’s autumn in Portland, and that means it’s time to break out the gratin dishes.

Not that one is prohibited from eating a warm, crisp-yet-soft gratin in the summertime, but a gratin in autumn is just so much more fitting than a gratin in the summertime. Traditionally, a gratin is a dish with a crunchy lid baked on top, that lid being, more often than not, bread crumbs, cheese, or a combination of both. The word gratin itself refers specifically to the crisp, crunchy bits left behind in a pan after baking, but, as most of us know a gratin, it means a baked dish topped with something crunchy or cheesy, then baked into a state of complete heavenly bliss.

As far as gratins go, this one is low on the cheesy scale, but high on the crunchy bread factor. Big chunks of crisp, dense black bread get folded amongst roasted cauliflower, speckled with Parmesan cheese, and dotted with garlic, then baked into a warm, crisp mass of perfect autumn eating. If you’re in the mood for something a bit more decadent, you can up the cheese presence, even using something a bit more melty and gooey, like fontina. As it appears here, however, this gratin is a great balance of autumn comfort and roasted vegetable goodness.

Last Year: Ranchero Sauce and Mexican Rice, plus a few words on my unparalleled admiration of Tamra Davis

Roasted Cauliflower and Black Bread Gratin Recipe

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

4 cups cubed black bread (the densest, most flavorful black bread you can find–I used the leftovers from this enormous loaf of black bread)

1 large head cauliflower, core removed, head cut into medium-small florets

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

¼ cup chopped Italian parsley

¾ cup shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

On a large baking sheet, combine bread cubes with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Toss the bread cubes to thoroughly coat with olive oil. Bake bread cubes in center of oven for 5 to 8 minutes, until the bread is crisp, but not hard. Remove bread crumbs from baking sheet and set aside.

On the same baking sheet, combine cauliflower florets with remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add salt and pepper, and toss everything to combine. Roast cauliflower in center of oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the undersides are well-browned and the tops are golden.

Remove cauliflower from oven, then, while still on the baking sheet, combine with toasted bread cubes, chopped garlic, and chopped Italian parsley. Carefully toss together to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Lower temperature of oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lightly spray or brush a casserole dish or baking dish (9” by 13” would be a good size, but I used one that was 10” by 7.5” and it worked out wonderfully) with olive oil. Add half of the cauliflower and bread mix, then sprinkle with ½ cup of the Parmesan cheese. Add remaining cauliflower and bread mixture, sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese, then bake in center of oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until the top of the gratin is crisp and golden brown.

Serve hot or warm, sprinkled with more chopped Italian parsley. Serves 6 to 8 people as a side dish, or 4 people as a main dish.

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Leek, Apple, and Rosemary Flatbread with Chèvre

29 Oct

It may be a little early to start thinking about the holidays, but with two party invitations having come our way in the last week alone, my brain has already started to focus on celebrations, invitations, and that most oft-repeated phrase in my personal RSVP: What can I bring?

Last week I tried out this flatbread for a party offering, and I could not have been happier with how it turned out. The savory leeks and earthy rosemary are just delightful with the addition of tender bites of apple, and when combined with creamy goat cheese on top of an olive oil-crisped dough, the result is nothing short of heavenly. Don’t like goat cheese? I’ll bet this would be just as tasty with some sharp blue cheese crumbled on top.

Last Year: Butternut Squash and Dry-Cured Olive Pizza with Ricotta and Chèvre. Well, look at that. The San Francisco Giants just won the World Series again (it is taking all the restraint I have just to not type that in all caps), and, in keeping with my current habit of eating black and orange foods to show my support during their postseason run, here is the very first black and orange food recipe I shared, celebrating the one year anniversary of their previous (and first ever!) World Series win.

Leek, Apple, and Rosemary Flatbread with Chèvre Recipe

This flatbread’s dough is a cinch to throw together, as it requires very little in the way of kneading, and allows time to do most of the work. The dough will need at least three hours to proof at room temperature, but, to be quite honest, the dough really shines brightest when left to proof in the refrigerator overnight. If you mix everything together before you go to bed, place it in the refrigerator, then remove the dough from the fridge at least 30 minutes before you need to use it, you’ll get the most flavorful dough possible.

For the dough:

½ cup warm water

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

1 1/3 cup bread flour

¼ teaspoon sea salt

¾ teaspoon rapid-rise yeast

Stir together warm water, olive oil, and honey, then set aside. In a large bowl, combine bread flour, salt, and yeast, and stir to combine thoroughly. Using a sturdy wooden spoon or spatula, stir in water mixture until mixture comes together in a shaggy mass. With the dough still in the bowl, knead the shaggy dough for about 1 minute, until the dough comes together and starts to become smooth. Shape the dough into a ball, drizzle the bowl with a bit of olive oil, then turn the dough around in the oil to coat completely. Tightly cover the bowl with plastic wrap, then leave the dough on the counter to rise for at least 3 hours (or, preferably, in the refrigerator overnight—just remember to remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

For the topping:

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 large leeks, white ends only, rinsed clean, sliced lengthwise, then sliced into half moons

1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced into ¼-inch chunks

½ heaping tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

2 ounces chèvre

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Arrange an oven rack in the middle position.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet set over medium heat. Add leeks, and stir to coat evenly in oil. Lower heat to medium-low and cook leeks, stirring occasionally, until they are soft, wilted, and starting to turn golden brown (about 15 minutes). Add diced apples and stir to combine. Cook until apples just begin to release a bit of their juices, about 5 minutes. Stir in rosemary, add salt and pepper to taste, then remove pan from heat and set aside to cool just a bit.

Coat the bottom of a 9” by 9” baking pan with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Turn room temperature dough out into the oiled pan, and, taking your time so as not to rip the dough, gently coax the dough into a square shape, fitting the dough all along the bottom of the pan. If the dough resists all efforts to be shaped, set the pan aside for a minute or two to allow the dough to rest, then come back and resume your shaping.

When the dough has been shaped in the pan, spoon the leek and apple mixture on top of the dough, leaving a ¼-inch border along the edges of the dough. Evenly crumble the chèvre over the leek mixture. Bake flatbread in center of oven for 14-16 minutes, until the edges of the dough are crisp and dark brown, and the topping is golden.

Remove flatbread from the pan using a flexible spatula. Cool briefly on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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