Pittsburgh Nights

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Mine was basically spent flopping around on my delightful in-laws' delightful couch* and eating lots of desserts, and also delightful Italian food at this place called Stagioni, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and not doing the Introduction to Bedside Diagnosis studying that I'd promised I would do. Now, I think my mother-in-law tried to rectify our diet somewhat by making a delicious carrot soup and arugula salad and grilled cheese on Saturday night, but we had to go ahead and ruin it by two straight days of NYU-provided junk food. Other relevant point: December heralds this thing that my grandmother is calling a gala that is basically a delayed wedding reception for us. I rather dislike the spotlight, a lot, but if this spotlighting party thing** is going to happen, it's going to happen to a lady who fits into the, erm, curve-hugging dress she bought at the beginning of the summer, dammit.

Thus, chickpeas in a caramelized onion and za'atar broth with arugula, persimmon, walnut, and feta salad in a lemon-mint dressing, and homemade crackers. I call it Delicious Zip-that-dress Dinner.

*Man, that is one fine couch.
**Mom: "You never got nervous when you were the center of attention for academic achievement! But now you're being the center of attention as a whole person!"
Me: "The part of me that can get married qualifies as a whole person?"
Mom: "..."

Comme un patron

Ever given a massage? I love giving them. And working a rich, bolar pastry dough feels almost exactly like massaging the skin and subcutaneous fat of someone's back*.

Before we continue, please excuse me. I have to take a few aspirin, because it hurts to pat myself on the back for making perfect croissants on a first attempt.

Food stylist credit to Avanti, who can rompre her pain like
nobody's business.

Jen also helped with the eating.

Unbaked, puffed up, full of potential.

Okay, done being arrogant now, because making these** is actually not very difficult. It's a long process, and I nearly had to skip a class in order to finish baking the second batch***, but there's very little that is technically difficult. A few tips cobbled together from the Internet, this experience, and a couple cookbooks:

1. The dough should be smooth, cold, and pliable. Imagine giving someone a massage just after they've been in a naked snowball fight****. Like that. Be sure to keep the room and your work surface cool so that the butter stays cold and malleable.
2. You won't need much flour to keep the dough from sticking. Overflouring will leave you with tough croissants, not the flaky, delicate deliciousness that you're aiming for.
3. If you're working with a small oven in a studio apartment under 400 square feet--no shame, my indebted, belectured compatriots!--the croissants will begin to brown well before the inside is baked. Either drape them lightly with aluminum foil when they're crusty and golden on top or cut smaller croissants.
4. Use good butter. I didn't, and I regret it. Also, these are a little tiny bit too sweet for my tastes, but still, the 1/4 cup is plenty subtle. And maybe try a sourdough croissant and let me know if it's worth the extra effort.

It's Thanksgiving break now. I'm going to read (one chapter left in 1Q84!) and sleep and convince myself that med school isn't as stressful as I make it out to be.

*I tried to think of a more appetizing way to put this. "Flesh" was the best I could come up with. While it's not poetic, it's true.
**Joanne Chang is the scion of Flour, and thus I trust any food-related statement she cares to make.
***I may have skipped that class in order to make a doctor's appointment anyway, but at least it wasn't for the croissants!
****Again, I tried. I'm sacrificing imagery for accuracy.

Adherence

Such a better word than compliance, don't you think? Anyway, I faithfully followed this recipe to make what I am going to humbly say are some of the best damn bao ever.

Next time I'm going to put some tofu in the filling, and maybe roll the dough a little bit thinner. Maybe.

We're trying to use up the rest of the veggies in our fridge before we go to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving (alert: if any of you want hilarious amounts of kale, cabbage, onions, or mushrooms, let me know), so I also made a cabbage and tofu stir-fry, just for a little protein, you know?

Duckling/swan

Once upon a time there was a head of cabbage that weighed over five pounds.

That poor, humble, ugly, morbidly obese head of cabbage got hacked in half. Part of it got made into cabbage with caraway, apples, and white beans, and it was very happy.

Just next door were some sunchokes. Not only were they tragically homely, they contain a whole lot of inulin. This makes them much-beloved by diabetics and dieters, but much-maligned by people who can't digest fructans and get horrible flatulence when they eat sunchokes.

Nothing could be done about the inulin content of the poor sunchokes, but they got sliced up and made into crispy oven-baked sunchoke chips, and they were delicious, and they were very happy.

This cinnamon bun "loaf" is just an all-star, from start to finish. It's as though the Gerber baby went on to become Heidi Klum and endured nary an awkward stage in between.

The Holy Tetrad

The Italians got it right quite a long time ago. Nothing can go wrong with a combination of noodles, cheese, tomato sauce, and garlic. If you're extra lucky, there will be vegetables.

Lasagna roll-ups! Like real lasagna, but rolled up! No need to post a recipe; it's pretty self-explanatory. Just try not to let the lasagna noodles stick together as you boil them, and boil them just until they can be rolled without breaking so that they become fully tender in the oven.

And now back to studying limb anatomy and bone pathology. It's hard to believe that this is the penultimate unit of my pre-clerkship curriculum...

Compulsive

So many muscles. So little time. Such an irrepressible urge to make twice-baked Tex-Mex sweet potatoes.

Recipe
2 lbs sweet potatoes
1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, and dried
1 onion, finely chopped
cheddar cheese
cumin
oregano
cocoa
paprika
cilantro
ancho chili powder
salt
pepper
scallions
yogurt/sour cream
other toppings/mix-ins, like jalapenos, chopped tomatoes, salsa, or corn

Bake or microwave the sweet potatoes until they are just tender. Halve the sweet potatoes lengthwise. Scoop out the insides once they're cool; attempt to leave a thin layer of sweet potato in the skin to give the skin some structure. Puree the sweet potatoes with spices to taste, keeping in mind that the heat will intensify things a bit. Mix together the beans and chopped onion, as well as any other mix-ins that you wish. Spoon some sweet potato puree back into the sweet potato skins, top with bean mixture, and top all that with a ludicrous amount of cheddar... or, if you're not me, a reasonable, heart-healthy amount of cheddar. Broil until the cheese is melted and just beginning to brown. Serve hot, topped with whatever you like.

Pomo carrot tart

Try as I might, I can never manage to finish laying a spiral of slices of... something... right in the center.

Following my complaint that my tarts are always decentralized, Andy encouraged the above moniker. Entertaining though it may be, I'd like to develop enough skill to make sure all my carrot slices (or apple slices or whatever) follow a fixed hierarchy.

That being said, this is really tasty. You can omit the raisins in the filling, and if you don't have or like rye flour, use whole wheat or just all white flour. Note that the vinegar in the crust isn't for taste. A little bit of acid--vinegar, lemon juice, even vodka--helps make the crust flaky, as does keeping all the ingredients as cold as possible.

Pomo carrot tart
For the crust:
1.25 sticks frozen butter, cubed
3.5 oz rye flour
3 oz all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white vinegar
1/4 cup ice cold water

Use a food processor to mix the butter, flours, and salt until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Add the vinegar and ice water and mix just until it comes together in a ball. Refrigerate for 2 hours or up to overnight. Roll out on a well-floured, cool to cold surface and place into your pie dish, decorating as desired. Blind-bake at 425 F for 5 minutes and at 350 for an additional 7.

For the filling:
1.5 lbs carrots
2 shallots
1 tbsp butter
1 egg
(here's where things start to break down, because I stopped measuring)
1/4 to 1/3 cup whole milk
salt, pepper, tarragon
honey (about 1 tsp)
lemon juice (1/4 tsp, ish)
about 1/4 cup raisins, optional
1 tbsp honey mixed with 2 tsp water, for glazing

Peel and trim the carrots. Use a mandoline or very sharp knife to cut thin slices from the large ends of the carrots until you have about a cup of them for decoration. Boil the rest until very soft. Meanwhile, chop the shallots and saute in 1 tbsp butter (or olive oil) until transparent. Add the carrots and puree the whole shebang. Stir in milk, honey, and lemon juice, and, when the mixture has cooled somewhat, the egg. Add salt, pepper, and tarragon to taste, keeping in mind that the flavor of tarragon intensifies somewhat with heat. I'm thinking that cooking the tarragon with the shallots will allow you to better gauge what the flavor will be like after baking. If you like, stir in raisins. Spread in the tart shell and layer the carrot slices on top. Brush with the honey-water glaze. Bake at 350 F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the slices on top are tender and browning. Cool slightly before serving.