I’m flipping through a thirty-year-old community cookbook by the Saint Ann Society of St. Michael’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut, when a recipe for struffoli, the Italian pastry, catches my eye. Crispy on the outside and cakey on the inside, these marble-sized balls of dough are first deeply fried in vegetable oil, then drenched in warm honey laced with tangerine peels. Every year at Christmas time, they are served piled high in a mountain of sticky goodness. And for me, struffoli are inextricably tied to my great Aunt Chris.
I tasted her struffoli just once, when I was very young. I sit on a green and gold velvet couch in the living room of another great aunt, from another side of my family. I place the struffoli in my mouth in bunches. They are sweet and syrupy. I know, because my father told me, that my Aunt Chris made them, and that they are special.
Angel biscuits are eaten at special Kentucky meals such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Derby.
2 pkg. active dry yeast (don’t use quick-rise yeast) 1/2 tsp. sugar 8 Tbsp. warm water 5 cups all-purpose flour (I use White Lily) 1 tsp. baking soda 3 tsp. baking powder 4 Tbsp. sugar 1 tsp. salt 1 cup Crisco (solid) or other vegetable shortening or lard, well-chilled 2 cups cold buttermilk
Butter, melted
Yield: 60 small cocktail size biscuits or about 2-dozen large.
NOTE: Angel biscuits can be made and baked immediately, but I like to make the them 12-24 hours in advance, so that the biscuits have time to rest and ferment a bit before baking — it adds a special quality to the flavor.
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water, and let it rest until mixture begins to foam.
In a large mixing bowl, sift flour with remaining dry ingredients. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; add buttermilk and yeast mixture to the flour and stir with a large spoon until a soft fluffy dough just comes together.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead/fold a couple of times. Pat out dough to flatten.
Using a rolling pin, roll dough out until it is at least 1/2-inch inch thickness.
Using a biscuit cutter (small for cocktail sandwiches, or larger to accompany a meal), cut dough into individual biscuits and place on a greased cookie sheet.
Brush lightly with melted butter, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.
About an hour before baking: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Remove biscuits from the refrigerator and allow to proof at room temperature in a warm kitchen — the biscuits should start to rise and be soft/pillowy to the touch.
Place biscuits on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden.
When done, the biscuits will be 1 1/2 to 2 inches in height.
Brush lightly with melted butter.
They are perfect for brunch or filled with sliced Kentucky country ham with cocktails.
My adopted hometown of Chartres is in the Beauce region, the breadbasket of France. Large, flat wheat fields surround the single hill of Chartres, topped with the most beautiful Gothic Cathedral in the world. You can see the cathedral for miles when driving across the fields, and a quite magical view it is, its spires dominating the flat farmlands. No wonder people have been making pilgrimages here for at least 5,000 years.
Chartrains, as we call the people from here, come from the land. Everyone in the region has a farm or has family who owns one, and because of the abundance of grains of every kind — wheat, barley, corn, rye and many more — grains are an integral part of the local diet.
This traditional recipe is referred to as “bread from the mill,” but no one knows the exact origin of that name. In the past, the Beaucerons (the inhabitants of the Beauce region), of Celtic and Druidic origins, ate this on the Jour des Morts, the day of the dead, which fell on November 2 after All Saint’s Day, when the living were said to communicate with the dead, when tombs and graves were said to open so that the world of the visible and invisible could intermingle for a short period.
Early in the morning of November 2, local bakers made pain aux morts, or “bread to the dead” (this could even be translated in a more ghoulish manner, “bread (made from) the dead”), out of flour and milk, for a traditional 10 a.m. breakfast before going to the cemetery.
In the nineteenth century, the church decided that All Saints Day sufficed and such pagan customs were more or less done away with. Beaucerons continue to eat this bread during the All Saints celebrations, however, calling it “bread from the mill” instead of “bread to the dead.”
I often serve this recipe with apéritif, but it can also make a vegetarian dinner, and can, of course, be eaten year round.
Recipe
Ingredients
6 pains au lait or 3-4″-long milk breads
6 cups milk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese or similar, grated
Cooking oil
Kitchen string
Instructions
Cut the bread in half lengthwise.
Use a spoon to scrape the crumbs out of the crust, taking care to leave the crust intact, and put the crumbs in a bowl.
Pour milk over crumbs and mix.
Add the eggs and the grated cheese and mix well.
Fill the crusts with the bread crumb mixture.
Use kitchen string to tie the bread halves together.
Heat cooking oil in a deep pan or fryer. When the oil starts to bubble, drop in the bread and cheese preparations.
Cook until golden brown.
Drain on paper towels and serve immediately while hot.
Many say this is the ultimate Venetian specialty, but considering that Venetians eat mainly fish, one could easily argue that point. A good fegato can be the highlight of a day or weekend, however.
Everyone loves caramelized onions, but some people dislike even the idea of eating liver. Calf’s liver is finer than beef or chicken, and when it’s topped with sweet onions, it is indeed a highly refined dish.
You’ll see the influence of my background in French cuisine; I went a bit heavy on the white wine when deglazing the pan, but it renders a succulent sauce.
One of the crucial elements to the success of this dish is that the liver be of exceptional quality and thinly sliced. Thick slabs simply don’t work and take away from the refined aspect of this dish.
Another secret is to slow cook the onions and to just seize the liver, no more. If you cook it more and on slow heat, it will become leathery.
Recipe
Ingredients
400 g onions 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
400 g calf’s liver cut in extra-thin slices 1-2 cups white wine Salt and pepper to taste Italian parsley, chopped
Skillet large enough to spread liver in a single layer
White polenta
If you live in Italy, you have to have a nonna. Having just lost my “adopted” Italian grandmother, Nonna Margherita, in Switzerland, the time was right, and it happened in the most unlikely place: Bellaria-Igea, a seaside town in Romagna, known as the Italian region of land-and-sea because of its plentiful bounty of both fish and meat. As a result, the cuisine is varied and copious, playing on unending themes of the two. The hillsides beyond the shores are verdant and rolling, producing excellent wine, meat and cheese, while traditionally, the inhabitants by the seaside are fishermen.
Originally, Bellaria-Igea was a village of solely fishermen and their families. Their wives supplemented the family income by renting out rooms in their seaside cottages. While the men were fishing, the wives tended to the guests by cooking, cleaning and generally making them feel at home. Over the years, they added extra rooms and their homes became locande, or “inns,” and eventually pensioni, or “small hotels,” and this became a seaside resort. This is the story of the family of my new nonna, Nonna Violante.
What to Eat in France: Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log, Traditional French Christmas Dessert
The Yule Log, or the bûche de Noël, “an elaborate creation consisting of a rolled, filled sponge cake, frosted with chocolate buttercream to look like tree bark and festooned with meringue mushrooms, marzipan holly sprigs, spun sugar cobwebs and any other sort of edible decoration,” is the traditional choice of Christmas dessert in France. It comes in many flavors and pastry chefs and home cooks alike let their creativity go wild.
Etre le dindon de la farce. / To fall victim to dupery.
Une dinde. / A stupid, pretentious woman.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, perhaps France’s best-known gastronomic writer, said that the turkey was certainly one of the most beautiful gifts the New World had given to the Old. “…the fattest, and if not the most delicate, at least, the tastiest of all domesticated birds.” It’s not often that the New World gets such compliments from discerning French epicures.
Turkeys were originally called poules d’Inde, “Indian hens,” in France, because they were thought to have come from India, which they later learned was Mexico. The French were not the only ones to get the name wrong. In Hebrew a turkey is a tarnagol hodu, meaning literally “Indian chicken;” in Russian indiuk, Polish indyk and Yiddish indik.
There is some controversy over who brought turkeys to Europe. Columbus probably brought brought them back in the early sixteenth century, since records show that King Ferdinand had ordered that every ship to bring back ten turkeys before the Spanish explorer Cortés set out in 1519. In any case, by 1548, they were the rage in France. In 1549, Catherine de Medicis served 70 “Indian hens” and 7 “Indian roosters” at a banquet held in honor of the Bishop of Paris.
French aristocrats were accustomed to eating all sorts of feathered creatures, including chewy storks, herons, peacocks, swans, cranes and cormorants, so it wasn’t surprising that they fell in love with the less-chewy turkeys, and that in 1570, Charles IX and Elizabeth of Austria thought turkey noble enough to serve at their wedding feast.
By the seventeenth century, the French were raising turkeys as if they were their own and most cookbooks included turkey recipes. French chefs weren’t lacking in ideas: they made stews and ragouts; they larded, roasted and glazed it; they stuffed it and made it into soups and pâtés.
Marie-Antonin Carême preferred the wings, which he deboned, then stuffed with chicken and truffles. Alexander Dumas, in his Dictionary of Cuisine, included 27 recipes. Turkeys were well established in the Hexagon.
Christmas dinners usually meant lots of mouths to feed, so turkey, being the largest of the winged creatures available, eventually became the dish of choice for Christmas feasts. By the nineteenth century, it became customary to stuff the Christmas turkey with chestnuts, and the tradition continues today.
Boeuf à la bourguignonne, also referred to as beef or boeuf bourguignon, is a French classic from the Burgundy wine region of France. It is made with red Burgundy wine, and simmered for hours. It makes up part of what the French refer to as “plats cuisinés“, or slow-cooked dishes.
This recipe is quite easy to make, and should serve about 8 people. Plan to make it well in advance, since it is best when it is left to marinate for 24 hours and cook slowly several hours on the day of serving. It is the perfect dish for dinner parties or potlucks, and is one of the best leftovers around.
Boeuf Bourguignon Recipe
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What to Eat in France: Soupe de Légumes, or French Vegetable Soup
French children hate soup because most of the soup they get looks like the one below. You’ll not find any tiny pasta alphabets swimming around in French soup. It looks like mush or worse, children say. And it does. It’s anything but the bright, primary colors that would attract a child.
Adults see it differently. In fall and winter, soup often replaces salad as a starter. It has a high vegetable content, therefore providing all the vegetables one needs for a day, and it always uses seasonal, mainly root, vegetables. Every region has their own version, as does every cook, and any day’s version depends on what is available at the market and in the larder.
Most French soup uses a classic potato and leek purée as a base, the same one used to make vichyssoise, no matter what the region.
In the country, there is a longstanding tradition of pouring a little red wine into the last few spoonfuls of soup, and drinking it straight from the bowl. This is referred to as “faire chabrot” (or “faire chabrol” or “fà chabroù” in other regions). All these variations come from the Latin capreolus. It means literally “to drink like a goat.” The tradition exists mainly south of the Loire. Today, it is mainly older people in the country who still practice it.
This recipe is from the Lyon region, where they add a bit of cabbage to the otherwise classic base.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 leek 1 carrot 1 turnip 1 stick of celery 2 onions 2 potatoes Chunk of cabbage 4 1/2 cups veal or chicken broth, hot 1 T. butter
Salt and pepper to taste Slices of country bread Parsley, chopped Glass of red wine for each diner
Directions
Chop vegetables into small cubes and place in saucepan or soup pot. (I leave on the skin for added fibre.)
Cover with hot broth.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cook over medium-low heat for about 1 1/2 hours.
Toast bread.
Purée in a food processor or with a potato masher.
Add butter and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Lay slices of toast in soup bowls.
Pour soup over toast.
Sprinkle with parsley.
Serve immediately.
When there are just a few spoonfuls of soup left in the bowl, add a little red wine and drink the rest of your soup straight from the bowl (if you dare).
One might ask why the Mediterranean countries — and locations such as Marseille — which have their own fishing waters, would dry a cold water fish such as cod. Fish are not always plentiful enough, for one thing, and when bad harvests arrived, it was handy to fall back on salted fish, which keeps for years. Traditionally, Catholics had to have fish on hand for Fridays, when they were not allowed to eat meat. During the Norwegian famine in 1315-17, Clifford A. Wright says that the Norwegians allowed export of their stockfish and butter in exchange for import of malt, flour, salt, and other commodities they were lacking — things that were readily available in the south. In addition, most salt at that time came from the Mediterranean, so the Nordic countries needed it to make their salt cod.
The term morue is generally thought to mean “salt cod,” but technically speaking, it’s simply dried, salted fish of the Gadiformes family. The word stockfish, probably from the Dutch stokvis, is used in many other countries. In contemporary cuisine, one sees the term morue fraîche, which has come to mean “fresh cod,” even though there’s a perfectly good word for fresh cod in French: cabillaud.
