Monthly Archives: January 2013
ffwd: long and slow apples
It’s been a while since we last made a dessert for French Fridays with Dorie. This week’s recipe sounded intriguing based on its name alone. Fortunately, it wasn’t as long or slow in execution as the name implied.
Long and Slow Apples are thinly sliced apples layered into ramekins with butter, spiced sugar, and orange zest sandwiched in between, then baked in a slow oven for a couple of hours. The apples caramelize and tenderize and shrink down to an apple patty just big enough to provide a little sweetness at the end of the meal.
This recipe provided an opportunity to pull out my seldom-used Benringer to slice those apples extra thinly. The apple curves fit into the ramekin perfectly, about two or three to a layer. I also got to use my favorite measuring spoons for those tiny units of Dash, Pinch, and Smidgen!
I was home alone this week as my husband was spending his week on the warmer West Coast. He isn’t a big fan of fruit desserts anyway, so I halved the recipe. I used two apples, expecting to fill two ramekins, though I filled two to the top and another about two-thirds full. I wasn’t sure whether I should have made added more to the two instead of moving on to another ramekin. Given the shrinkage, maybe I should have. I don’t know.
I had my doubts about the next step: wrapping the filled cups with plastic wrap before also wrapping with foil. These were going into the oven after all… Dorie said to trust her, the plastic would not melt. I was very skeptical, but miraculously, she was right. I gather that other Doristas didn’t have the same result and their plastic melted. Others didn’t trust Dorie and used parchment or buttered foil, which is what I’ll do next time. Seems safer.
The wrapped cups are lightly weighted down by another ramekin and baked in a slow oven. The house smelled amazing as the apples baked. The combination of apples, which always smell good, and citrus, which also always smells good, made the kitchen smell like home. When they were ready, I couldn’t wait to dig in and try one. I was surprised how much the apples shrank.
I unmolded the apples onto a plate and, because I’m not one for whipped cream, I dolloped it with Greek yogurt instead, garnishing with some slivered crystallized ginger.
I have mixed feelings about these apples. I was too heavy-handed with the orange zest. As I said, the aroma was enticing, but the orange flavor overpowered the apples. The orange zest in the recipe is optional, so I will try again without, or with less.
I did like the texture. The apple slices kept their shape and were perfectly tender. This recipe used sugar spiced with dried ginger and coriander. I’d like to play around with other spices as well. Even though butter and sugar are involved, this dessert is relatively healthy as not much of either is used, just enough to boost the natural flavor of the fruit.
I will try this again some time, though maybe not right away.
If you’d like to try it yourself, the recipe can be found here. If you want to read about other Doristas’ long and slow apples, follow their links here.
ffwd: herb-speckled spaetzle
Spaetzle. Before this week, I’d heard of but never seen or eaten spaetzle, let alone made it. However, for over 20 years, I’ve been the proud owner of a Spaetzle Maker. It’s spent most of that time in my basement, never seeing the light of the kitchen. This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is for Herb-Speckled Spaetzle. It seems that spaetzle and I will finally make each other’s acquaintance in 2013.
You might wonder why I would have this gadget in my basement for so long and never actually used it. Good question. Truth be told, I’m a bit of a pack rat. (To my sisters, if you are reading this, hold your comments, please…) More importantly, the spaetzle maker was a wedding shower gift from my mother who had just moved to Germany, Sankt Leon-Rot, just south of Heidelberg, to be more exact. (She lived there for 3 years before returning to the U.S.) Sharing a bit of German culinary culture was the perfect gift. However, not having any connection to German culinary culture and never having had spaetzle before, I wasn’t in a big hurry to try it. As with so many other things, I got distracted and forgot about it.
The dumpling dough mixed together easily with pantry ingredients. For herbs, I used what I always think of as the Simon and Garfunkel quartet: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Corny, I know.
The dough was like an extra thick pancake batter. In batches, I squeezed the dough through my spaetzle meister, which was like a big potato ricer with funny shaped holes like squiggly lines into a pot of boiling water.
In the pot, the dough blobs grew. The process felt a bit awkward. I have no idea whether my dough was the right consistency, whether my spaetzles are the right shape, or if there was some kind of technique I need to master. With no point of comparison, the end result seemed to come out fine. (German friends, please advise.)
Finally, for this recipe, you make a mushroom sauce which turns the spaetzle into a meal. I followed the recipe closely, though I used a red onion and cremini mushrooms to add some color. The recipe said it made 2 main-course servings. I don’t know who was doing the eating, but the two of us ate hearty portions for two separate meals, so this easily made 4 main-course servings. Crazy!
I don’t know why I waited over 21 years to use my spaetzle maker. This was a definite hit. Dinner conversation revolved around what other kinds of sauces we could use when we make this again. Last year, when I was reading Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite, she wrote about spaetzle. She mixes in caramelized onions and greens, then tops it all with cheese before baking it. Dorie’s recipe was good, but that sounds even better, like a German-style mac and cheese. Can’t wait to try it Melissa’s way next!
If you’ve never had spaetzle before, you need to make it right away: today, or at least this week. Dorie’s recipe can be found here on Epicurious. To see how my blogger friends enjoyed their spaetzle experiences, check out their links here.
A Plateful of Happiness 