Buttermilk Biscuits

Do you swear by butter? Shortening? Butter and shortening? Lard? Roll? Pat? Beaten biscuits? Should you add baking soda? Flour from hard winter wheat (Northern - higher protein) or soft summer wheat (Southern - lower protein)? For a simple recipe that home cooks have been making in a recognizable-even-today form since the late 18th and early 19th century, there are a myriad of variations based on location, availability of ingredients and the state of your household economy.

Countless women (and men, I'm sure) have made batches of biscuits every morning - and some every night. They are 'quick' (non-yeast) breads that in their best form have a great rise, are sturdy enough to hold up to a sausage patty and egg or gravy or, sweetened with a little sugar, a load of fresh strawberries and cream. ...or just a smear of butter and some honey or jam.

If you don't already have a buttermilk biscuit recipe that you think is perfect, give this one a try.

For me, I don't stock shortening or lard and I never remember to buy White Lily (or  King Arthur) soft, summer flour. I don't even have buttermilk in my refrigerator on a regular basis, but I have discovered powdered buttermilk - a righteous and more than acceptable substitution in baking applications. I've included three other buttermilk substitutions in the recipe.

I cut in the butter (refrigerator cold) with my fingers so that the pieces are not entirely uniform - some little pea-size pieces and others that I've rubbed between my fingers into thin flakes. After I've cut in the butter, I stick the flour and butter mixture in the freezer for about 15 minutes before I mix-in ice-cold water (or buttermilk, if you're using it). There are some other tips and all are in the recipe after the jump.

Baking powder. Must. Be. Fresh. If you don't bake too often, buy the little can and throw out what you haven't used once a year. Just do it. Don't make this recipe or any quick bread or biscuit recipe until you: (a) check the expiration date on your baking powder; and if it has passed (b) buy a new can. The small cans are pretty cheap. I also use 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. Too much of either and there's a noticeable 'off' flavor, but 1 1/4 tablespoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda passed my "Super Taster's" (my cooking compadre, Lynn - her palate is more sensitive than mine) taste test.

Biscuit cutters. If you don't have one, don't use a glass - use your knife. The sharp edge of a biscuit cutter or a sharp knife won't drag down the sides of the biscuit. Using a knife to cut your biscuits eliminates the need for re-forming the dough from scraps. Second generation biscuits are never as good as those cut the first time through. Place the biscuits close together on the pan for higher risers and an inch or more apart for crispier tops and bottoms.


RECIPE: BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin, No-Name Potatoes and Citrus Salad

I swear that this is (probably nearly) the last post for things made in 2011, but it's a great dish that we made for our 2011 New Year's Eve dinner. We'd been planning to make this pork loin roast since October 2011 when Lynn saw it in Bon Appetit. None of the components are difficult for the pork loin but there was a serious error in the original recipe when it came to cooking temperature and time - which I address in the recipe's head notes after the jump. 

Fortunately, others had gone before and there was very good information in the reviews. Ours looked like the roast in the magazine's picture and tasted like something you'd gladly open your wallet to pay for in a restaurant. It was all kinds of awesome.

A pork loin is butterflied, a layer of pre-wilted kale is spread on top, and on top of that a mixture of pork sausage, reconstituted dried mushrooms and apples, thyme and rosemary. The loin is then rolled and wrapped in a layer of prosciutto, tied and garnished with rosemary, browned briefly and roasted.

I was at Sur La Table looking to buy some kitchen twine because Lynn was out. All they had were ridiculously expensive (and small) packages of kitchen twine and these re-usable silicone bands for about the same price.  I have poo-pooed these in the past because tying your own roast or other cut of meat when called for is something you should know how to do.  However... the bands work beautifully, are easy to remove and easy to clean. These bands wouldn't work for every application, but they were perfect for this roast. Yay, technology!

Hello luv-ah!

I can't figure out what to name the potatoes. The closest I've come is "French-Fried Potato Columns" (not entirely accurate and kind of uninteresting), or maybe, "Potatoes Cooked Three-Ways". Ugh. My sister Chris served these a couple of years ago for our family's Christmas Eve dinner and I've been periodically obsessing over them since then.They taste  like french fries on the outside (but are not deep fried) and inside, but are approximately 2" high by 2 to 3" diameter "columns" and so there is a lot of fluffy potato in the middle. I don't eat potatoes very often and when I finally got around to asking her how she made them she didn't remember, didn't know where she'd found the recipe or even if there was a recipe. My research proved fruitless - I couldn't find anything exactly like what I remembered.

The potato "columns" drying after being boiled. After they've dried, the tops and bottoms are sauteed until they're a deep golden brown and then they're popped in the oven for about 15 minutes..

When we were out picking up the roast at Tacoma Boys (on 6th Ave. - great store) and other ingedients for the 2011 Christmas Eve dinner, I cornered her in the cracker aisle and wouldn't let her leave until she'd remembered how she made them. Which she did. I made a test batch for my sister Sara's family and got a unanimous thumbs up.

.The citrus salad was all Lynn's idea: a variety of greens, grapefruit supremes, toasted pecans and avocado in a grapefruit and Sherry vinegar vinaigrette. It was a perfect balance to the rich pork.

It was truly a wonderful way to mark the end of 2011.

RECIPES (after the jump):
- Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin
- No-Name Potatoes
- Salad with Grapefruit, Toasted Pecans, Avocado and a Grapefruit Vinaigrette

Potato Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce and Fresh Peas

There was unfortunate sauce breakage, but other than that, the gnocchi were perfect pillows of  deliciousness.

 My long-held desire to make homemade gnocchi has been balanced by the spectre of gnocchi dissolving as the little dumplings hit the boiling water or ending up as a gummy, tooth-sticking mess, but for my (belated) birthday dinner with Lynn, my ever-ready amico in la cocina (Lynn had never eaten gnocchi - what? Impossible! Really?), we decided to give it a shot.

Fresh peas!

 "Gnocchi", derived from the Italian word "nocchio" (a knot in wood, or knuckle), is considered to have been introduced in Italy by the Romans who based their dumplings on a semolina porridge dough mixed with eggs. Potatoes didn't come into the mix until the 16th century. Gnocchi derivatives are geographically widespread and diverse in ingredients (bread crumbs, eggs, no eggs, etc.). As with many dishes, a dish of gnocchi (cheap-ish carbs or left-overs + liquid and a binder) is economical and filling the world over.

They take well to nearly any sauce, but a light hand with other ingredients is encouraged. These are delicate pillows that you don't want to crush (literally or as it applies to flavor). You can cut them and cook them without rolling to get the ridges, but those ridges - as with pasta shapes other than flat noodles - are certified sauce delivery systems.

This is the last picture before the one where the rolled gnocchi are in the pan. Dough-crusted hands are not a good choice to handle a camera.

In Lidia, We Trust

We have both watched Lidia Bastianich make gnocchi countless times on her cooking shows and didn't think of  looking elsewhere for a recipe. We looked around and found the same or very similar recipes from a variety of sources, but always held them up against Lidia's as the standard from which we wanted to start. We did  mine the internet for some videos and tips and found the following useful:

• We chose to boil our potatoes although there are some methods that specify baking the potatoes (at 425F on a bed of kosher salt on a baking sheet). Start cooking the (skin on!) potatoes in cold, salted water and cook until a sharp paring knife or skewer slides in and out of the thickest part without resistance. Do not overcook and if the skins split, this will not bode well. Cooking time will vary with the size of your potatoes so start checking at 30 minutes.
• Peel the potatoes while they're hot. Hold them in a clean, folded kitchen towel and use a sharp paring knife to gently peel off the skin.
• I can't imagine making these without a potato ricer or a food mill. Some tips included substituting a grater, but YMMV.  You could even push the potatoes through the holes of a colander (as with spaetzle).  You want them fluffy! The riced potatoes need to be a cooled (so as not to cook the egg) and be a fluffy, airy mound when you start to incorporate the egg and then the flour.
• Once you start mixing your dough  and until you are finished rolling and cutting the gnocchi do not stop. Work as fast as you can, over time the sitting dough gets moister as it absorbs the liquid from the potatoes.
• Don't overwork the dough. This isn't pasta, these are dumplings. Work the dough a little more than you would biscuits. Lidia's recipe specifies that it should take about 3 minutes to incorporate the flour and that worked beautifully for us. Your hands are the right tool for this job.
• When you cook the gnocchi, do not add them to boiling water, add them to water that is at a righteous simmer in small batches of a couple of handfuls at a time. If you are not serving them immediately, shock each cooked batch in ice water and set aside in a colander once cooled. I would classify "immediately" as 15 minutes. To reheat, saute them briefly in a little butter or add them to the sauce for just a minute before you serve.
• If you want to make them further ahead of time or make them to be used on another day, place each dumpling on a clean, floured kitchen towel on top of a baking sheet - not touching - or a piece of floured wax paper or parchment and freeze. Once completely frozen, put the dumplings in a seal-able freezer bag, removing all possible air. They should last up to 2 months. Do not defrost the frozen gnocchi when you add them to the water. Add a scant 1 minute to the cooking time after the gnocchi rise. 

...and probably most importantly, do this with one (or more) people, especially if you're rolling the cut dumpling pillows to form ridges. The first ones will look awful, but soon you'll be rolling them like the Italian nonna you may never have had. You can see a couple of different methods here, or follow the directions in Lidia's recipe here. 

Even with all of the possible 'gotchas', this recipe isn't at all difficult. Just give yourself the luxury of time.

The one minor fail  was with the sauce. We made a reduced cream sauce with aged gorgonzola and peas. This type of sauce, with nothing to stabilize it, has a shelf life of approximately a blink of an eye before it breaks. If I hadn't added the peas, I could have re-emulsified it before serving. If we make this again, I'd follow the steps listed in the recipe (after the jump) for the final preparation rather than how we handled it last night.

RECIPE: POTATO GNOCCHI WITH GORGONZOLA CREAM SAUCE AND FRESH PEAS

Friday Dinner: Tuscan Pork Stew and Polenta

Tonight, with rain coming down in buckets, it was a perfect night for a warm, aromatic stew over creamy polenta cooked with milk and finished with some Asiago cheese and parsley. When Lynn, my cooking partner extraordinaire, suggested that we make this I was immediately all-in but since polenta's not her favorite thing, I was a little puzzled. She found a recipe on the Food and Wine site and  and thought that polenta was just the thing. It looked great to me, too - pork shoulder marinated in wine, aromatics, rosemary, sage, bay, and cloves! ... and juniper berries! According to the writer, it was developed by Chef Joe Sponzo to be made with wild boar.

...not that we don't have feral pigs with a little wild boar in the historical breeding mix here in Northern California. When I lived in Clayton for a little while (in Contra Costa County), I would read news reports of the wild/feral pigs that are the scourge of parks in and around Mt. Diablo, but no... we used pork shoulder.

One thing that struck both of us about the recipe is that it seemed like it hadn't been adapted for pork instead of wild boar. Some of the aromatics (juniper berries, cloves) and methods (boiling the meat before searing and braising it - don't do it) seemed more oriented towards game so we made some changes that I'll pass along in the recipe. In addition to the stew and polenta - we went a different direction with the polenta - we had roasted asparagus (Spring!) with garlic, salad and we drank a San Giovese with dinner.

RECIPE: TUSCAN PORK STEW WITH POLENTA

Quick Preserved Kumquats - When Life Gives you Kumquats and Not Lemons...

This is the tabouli-ish salad I made using the quick preserved kumquats

Nagami Kumquats

I've run out of my preserved lemons and I am sad but I cheered up when I read the article, Preserved Lemons Brighten a Stir-Fry by Melissa Clerk at the NYTimes online site. Ms. Clark is spot-on when she writes, "A jar of preserved lemons sitting in the fridge is a boon for the busy cook. Chopped up and tossed into salads, stews and sautés, they add a bright, nuanced burst of flavor in one speedy step — as long as you happen to have some on hand."

True, dat. It's also true that the quick preserve method doesn't give you the same complex flavor as true preserved lemons, but this method provides a good substitute when necessary. Or you have some Nagami kumquats

Her recipe calls for 1 1/2 Meyer lemons, but I had a few of the Nagami kumquats and a plan to make a kind-of-a-tabouli salad and figured I'd give Ms. Clark's method a try. I love kumquats to eat out of hand, but I prefer the Miewa kumquats that I get from Will's Avocado's at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market which, while still tart inside, have a sweeter rind.

The Nagami's would make an awesome marmalade but for me, one or two eaten raw is my limit (Hmm... Shaker Kumquat Pie, anyone?). I eat the Miewas seeds and all but for this recipe, I de-seeded them as they would be used in a salad. Getting rid of the seeds is a bit fussy but since I wasn't working with too many, I didn't mind.

QUICK PRESERVED KUMQUATS