The Hungry Tiger

Oaty pikelets

 

First I made these excellent pancakes. You start them the night ahead, with some oats and buttermilk mixed together in a bowl and put in the refrigerator to soak. (We have a fridge! At last! Hooray!) The next morning, you have some for breakfast and a few leftover, cold, later on. 

Soon I realized that though they were fine hot off the griddle, I liked the leftover ones much better. I started making them just for snacking on. And once I was doing that, I made them a bit smaller, the better for eating out of hand. And once that happened, I finally realized that what I was making, in fact, was oatmeal pikelets.

 

They are somewhere between a pancake and a crumpet, not quite as holey as the latter but made en masse for toasting (or not toasting) later, unlike the former. If you have crumpet rings, as I now do, you can make them extra pikelety and a bit taller. If you don't, leave out the extra splash of milk from the recipe below and just make small, free-form griddle cakes. The batter will be very thick, so they won't spread much, and they will work just fine. 

Then when you're done, either way, let them cool and pop them into a bag, or bags, or some covered container, and put them away in your refrigerator, so that over the next week you can eat them cold or toasted, with butter or jam, or butter and jam.

 

OAT PIKELETS
repurposed from Orangette

2 cups rolled oats
2 c. buttermilk
½ c. all-purpose flour
2 T. sugar
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
½ t. salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 T. milk, if using crumpet rings

The night before, mix the oats and buttermilk together in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 6 to 24 hours.

When you're ready to begin cooking, take out the bowl of oats and melt the butter in a small saucepan. Leave it a few minutes to cool down a bit.

In the meantime, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. 

Add the melted butter, beaten eggs, and milk (if using) to the oat mixture and mix well. Add the flour mixture and mix just until it's completely incorporated. The batter will be thick.

You are going to cook these a little lower and slower than you might ordinarily cook pancakes, because of the thickness. Heat a skillet over a medium flame and brush a little butter on the pan. (I use the dregs of the melted butter that went into the batter.) If you are using crumpet rings, oil them too.

Set the crumpet rings in the pan, or not if you don't have any, and scoop the batter. A skimpy quarter cup is about right. That's about three tablespoons. When bubbles appear at the top and you can see that the edges are set, remove the rings and flip to finish. I find that the first side takes about four minutes when the temperature is right. The second side cooks a little more quickly.

Remove to a cooling rack and repeat until the batter is used up. 

For me, this makes 24 pikelets every time.

Tarte au Sucre

In Canadian French, "tarte au sucre" means a real sugar pie: flaky pie crust with a sweet filling, along the lines of shoofly pie. In France, though, it's the name of a yeasted cake with sweet topping. To make one, first you make a brioche dough and pat it into a buttered springform pan. Then you spread the top with soft butter, and sprinkle sugar over that. In the oven, the sugar and butter melt into a crunchy sweet crust over a tender but substantial base.

Despite the name, it's not excessively sweet, and it makes an excellent breakfast or teatime snack. After the first day, I like to cut a wedge, then warm it in a toaster oven. (Keep an eye on it lest you burn the topping.) This magically restores it to soft freshness and adds a little bonus toasty flavor. With toasting, the slices we ate on Thursday were as good as the ones we'd had on Sunday.

Of course yeast doughs take a little extra planning, but this one is pretty straightforward, with its long cool overnight rise. I plan it like so: Start the dough on Friday or Saturday evening, then pop it into the fridge. The next morning, take it out first thing and go about your business showering, having breakfast, and so on while it comes to room temperature, or take it out after breakfast and go run a few errands. Then you can bake it up around lunchtime and have your first taste as an afternoon snack. Instructions below assume a stand mixer.

Breakfast lentils

From the archives. These are tasty, absurdly easy, and low on the glycemic index, so you won't be ravenous again at ten. I always think that they'll be too weird to appeal to other people, since most of us are not at our most adventuresome at breakfast time, but history has proved me wrong. Maybe you will like them too. Originally posted in September 2004.

We like savory breakfasts in these parts, but are not remotely capable of making a hot breakfast on weekdays. Omelettes and the like are lovely on Saturday mornings, but require too much coordination for Tuesdays. So there are a couple of dishes I've developed that I can make very easily in bulk, and which dress up quickly and appetizingly in the morning. One of them is what we call "breakfast lentils." Here you see them with yogurt, red onion, and lightly pickled cucumber.

"Inconvenient" granola

Two years ago I posted a recipe for "very good granola." That granola was indeed good. I ate it with pleasure and would happily eat it again. This granola, however, is better. It's a bit more trouble, but I don't think it actually takes more time. For one thing, that old recipe (like many others) involves toasting everything at a truly excruciatingly low temperature, which is unnecessary and takes forever.

In the interim, I have been convinced by this method if not quite those ingredients. I abominate sunflower seeds in granola and was also influenced by a New York Times piece a little while ago about the virtues of using olive oil and extra salt. And then, rather than mix in dried fruit at the same time as everything else, I add it to the bowl just before eating -- why not? That way you can choose something different every time, if you like. These days I am fond of dried cherries and Persian green raisins, which are beautiful and have their own very nice flavor, not quite like any other raisins I've had.

I also claimed that the "very good" recipe made "a fairly enormous quantity" -- half a gallon, including the dried fruit. In light of the quantities of granola now gracing my kitchen, this seems slightly comical. The recipe here makes at least fifteen cups before the fruit gets involved at all. 

Quick dhokla

I like fluffy, chewy steamed breads very much, though I don't usually think of making them at home. Do you know the kind of thing I'm talking about? Bright white mantou, for example -- those Chinese steamed buns with no filling. They're great, but something I buy at Chinatown bakeries rather than something I make myself.

These kinds of steamed breads, the dense, sweet kind filled with dates and walnuts and that kind of thing, well, I don't honestly think of them as breads. I like a nice plum pudding, but not this time of year!

 

The light, savory Indian steamed bread called dhokla, though, is so appealing that now I've realized that I can make it in the comfort of my own home, it's threatening to become a new staple recipe. I first had dhokla at the amazing Vik's in Berkeley. It's golden and springy, dressed with fried mustard seeds and fresh cilantro, and I love it. It's supposed to be more of a snack food, really, than something you're supposed to have with dinner, but so far dinner has been when we've had it, and leftovers the next morning with our coffee.

Since we're just a couple of dorky white heathens, anyhow, it works for us. The more traditional way of making dhokla includes a step in which you ferment it overnight, like a sourdough -- first making a batter of gram (chickpea) flour and/or rice flour and spices, or even soaking chana dal (that is, split hulled chickpeas) overnight, then grinding them together with the spices, and then letting that ferment for some hours. Only then do you add the baking soda.

I daresay that is even more delicious, but honestly this quick version tastes very nice too. It's also easy to make, despite the length of my instructions below. I adapted this recipe very slightly from the version at Saffron Trail, and added some tips based on what have struck me as potential pitfalls along the way. It makes enough for S. and me to have plenty for dinner and breakfast the next day; it should serve four as a lunch or hearty snack.

Making lately: granola

Homemade granola is so nice and really very easy; all you need is an hour or so to hang around giving it a stir every so often, and your minimal labor is repaid many times over. It's also, of course, a great deal cheaper than store-bought, even if you use much nicer ingredients.

Well, I like to use dried cherries, which are pretty expensive, so it might come out to being only a tiny bit cheaper than buying a cheapish ready made variety, but this way you get lovely cherries! I'm thinking of getting some dried blueberries for next time and really living it up.

This recipe makes a fairly enormous quantity: about a half gallon, which really does go a long way, as granola is pretty darn filling. If you live in a small household, like ours, you might prefer to halve it. That's what I did this time, although I realized that I could just as well have made the full recipe and given half away. Oh well.

VERY GOOD GRANOLA

3 cups rolled oats
2 cups nuts (slivered almonds are nice, as are chopped cashews or chopped walnuts)
1/4 cup sesame seeds (optional but delicious)
3/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup butter (You could use vegetable oil instead, but butter is awfully good)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or vanilla extract, or both
1 cup dried fruit (say, dried cherries)

Get out 2 jelly roll pans, or sheet pans with rims, or 9" x 13" baking pans. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Mix the oats, nuts, seeds, and coconut in a very large bowl. Meanwhile, melt the butter and stir in the sugar, syrup, salt, and cinnamon or vanilla. Combine the two mixtures. Don't add the dried fruit; that comes at the very end.

Spread the mixture evenly over the two baking sheets and bake for up to an hour and 15 minutes, until the oats start to look toasty, stirring every 15 minutes to cook evenly. I find mine are usually done after an hour. Wash and dry your large bowl in the meantime. Remove from oven and transfer back to the bowl. Add the dried fruit and mix until evenly distributed. It won't be terribly crunchy when it comes out of the oven, but crisps up as it cools. Once it's completely, completely cool, transfer to an airtight container.

Applesauce Spice Cake

Over the weekend I baked up a pan of applesauce spice bars from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I pronounce them delicious, though I did a couple of things that I regret. I didn't have any corn syrup, so I substituted honey in the glaze. This worked fine, but I think that honey is more hygroscopic than corn syrup, making the glaze grow stickier over time.

I also put the bars in an airtight container in layers (with parchment between), in the refrigerator. I think that this also made the glaze gooier than it was supposed to be, and the lower layers especially got a bit gloppy. Still, very good, with a nice balance of sticky gooey treat and wholesome afterschool snack. (Or breakfast, in actual fact.) I wonder if I can find a nice 9" x 13" storage container for future batches.

About the Cafe Atlantico brunch

If you want to get the tasting menu, the whole table has to go for it. Then the lovely charming server brings out a remarkable succession of dishes, paced perfectly. You may request more of anything. We also had mimosas.

Because there were so very, very many dishes, I will clump them together according to some mysterious system based on whim alone, and it will go on for quite a while, pushing everything else on the page into nethersome nether regions. Let me just reiterate, in case it was at all unclear: This entry is really very long, it is disorganized, and it is only about one meal. I have doubless left things off, as well. It is chaos and madness down there. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

First we had the guacamole, which was made to our specifications of hotness in a lovely big salsa grinding stone (a molcajete, Judith tells/reminds me). It was good, as freshly made guacamole can hardly help but be, but nothing particularly beyond the ordinary. But at the same time, we received espresso cups full of boniato soup with cinnamon oil. Boniato is a white-fleshed sweet potato, and the cinnamon oil was not, as you might fear from the name, an overpowering element. The result was very good indeed. I was a little wary of it at first, because the film of oil on top made it look likely to be alarmingly greasy. It was not. I would have more of that soup any time.

Next came fried eggs in Veracruz sauce. Veracruz sauce appears to be a kind of tangy tomato sauce with olives. The eggs were beautifully fried, over easy, with ideal little crispy edges, and I had no idea how well olives and eggs went together. At the same time, we received some visually striking rectangular plates holding six decoratively arranged little twists of shaved pineapple sprinkled with what the menu tells me was plantain powder. It was not recognizable to me as anything related to plantains, but the effect was nice. The pineapple was shaved very thin, and it was crisp. The eggs and the pineapple were the only simultaneously served items that didn't quite seem to complement one another perfectly, but they were both very good on their own.

Next up, I think, though at this point I begin to get a little muddled on the order of things, were boniato chips (those sweet potatoes again), spinach with pumpkin seeds and little raisins, and beets in beet oil. I love spinach with a desperate passion and have always been fond of it with currants and pine nuts. This variation on that classic combo was entirely satisfactory, and we had extra of it later on. The beets were good; I like beets. They were not among the most exciting things on the menu, but nothing to sneeze at, either. I wouldn't order them specially, but they gave some pleasant variety to the offerings. The sweet potato chips were nice and fresh.

What followed next (I think) was a remarkable item that consisted of thin flat squares of some sweet potatoish vegetable, cooked lightly but not underdone, sandwiching a puree of I have no idea what. This was all quite mild in flavor, but accompanied by a little bit of grapefruit with salt. One of us found this citrus-salt-sweet combination utterly vile; I found it odd, but good. It was attention-getting. Alongside (or maybe we had it earlier?) were little stacks of perfectly cooked asparagus with orange segments. It has been a very asparagus-y spring for me, but it is hard to mind more asparagus, regardless. A simple and tasty combination.

At this point, I am completely at sea about the order of items, until we get to the end, so I will just discuss them in the order that they occur to me. I hope I will not miss anything, though that seems unlikely. There was a potato and vanilla mousse--a foam, really--in a sherry glass. Foams are weird, but novel. There was salmon roe at the bottom. Not so vegetarian. I ate around it. S. just skipped that course. Everyone else cheerfully ate it and found it good. I imagine the foam was much more interesting with the textural and flavor contrast of the roe. There were exceedingly yummy quesadillas with corn truffles, or huitlacoche. I like my fungi. If we hadn't been flagging rather by then, I would have had more of these.

There was malanga puree with malanga chips. Malanga is a root that is closely related to taro, which means that malanga puree is not far off from poi. And yet I have heard that poi is gluey, bland, and horrible if one is not raised on it, and this was none of the above. It was most reminiscent of the Tuscan white bean puree I have enjoyed many times at Providence's fine Al Forno. This either means that the roots have a distinction with a difference, or that the kitchen has found a way to make the best poi of all time. There was chiffonaded swiss chard with crispy garlic, which sent S., especially, into fits of ecstasy. There were little bundles of avocado wrapped in thin crunchy sheets of raw jicama, which were surprisingly refreshing and good.

Near the end were two of my favorite dishes of the meal. First, what they called "coco rice with crispy rice." This was a savory rice pudding with shavings of fresh coconut meat (and perhaps with coconut milk too), and puffed rice on top. I love savory dishes with coconut, and this was an exceptionally excellent one. The puffed rice added excellent texture, in the classic way of crispy garnishes, and it was all just... mm. Then a very tasty pilaf of quinoa. I have never much encountered quinoa before, and I hear it is something of a bitch to prepare. But they did it proud, and the result was a fluffy pilaf studded with tiny tiny slivers of cauliflower, oddly enough, and plenty of beautifully caramelized onions. I could have eaten a lot more of that, but our friend M. warned me that I would want to save room for the desert. Dessert was pan dulce with cinnamon syrup. This was an especially tasty french toast variant, with the interesting feature of having some sort of cheese (!) between the layers.

Then we went on a nice walk across town and thus avoided turning into bags of cement.

Rock on, Chicago

In Chicago, both food and entertainments are plentiful. F. and I feasted upon grilled cheese and Cadbury Mini Eggs and homemade pizza and gin in grapefruit juice while reading Horatio Hornblower books, devising mnemonics for syntax-related things, availing ourselves of public transit, and admiring Ralph Fiennes. If that isn't the good life, I don't know what is.

We also had brunch at a good spot that would have been probably insufferably precious if the food were not so gosh-darned delicious. It was in one of the many Chicago neighborhoods I have not yet learned to distinguish between. One reaches them on the El and walks around in circles and eventually finds a coffee place and rolls one's eyes at the shittiness of the coffee and the unbearableness of the other customers. Anyway, this fine teetering-on-the-edge-of-the-preciousness-abyss restaurant is called Orange, and they served us wonderful grilled cheese and rose (!) pancakes, so good. But the very best thing was the fresh pear juice, which is something I have never managed to have before and which almost make me think a juicer would be a desirable object. But really there is no way on earth that I want to buy and store such an item, and fortunately F. assures me that pear juice can be achieved through the combined efforts of a knife, a blender, and a strainer, so I may manage to have some in any case. That would be very exciting indeed.

Also featured was lunch with the excellent Thirteens, who are very kind indeed and also fed us prodigious quantities of Thai food. Praise to Thirteens, who are a great and generous people!

Now I am home again and we have had potato soup for lunch and been to the library where, among other things, plenty of Hornblower reading has been obtained. I am steadily avoiding my work and contemplating a nice drink or maybe a snack of Ak-Mak sesame crackers, which I have recently discovered and deem very good. They made an appearance at a recent working group meeting, and I was pretty dubious because they look like your standard hard-as-a-rock desiccated hippie tablets, but in fact they are very tasty. Or at least I think so. You might not agree. Maybe I will have a nice drink AND a snack of sesame crackers, because I am that kind of crazy person.

This entry has no conclusion, because I am that kind of crazy person, too.

Little bensone (bensini?)

Our current breakfast phase. These mid-sized golden pastries somehow come out with an almost cornbread-like crumb, though not as dry as a lot of cornbread seems to be. I don't really know what makes them turn out so pretty and yellow, but it is a nice bonus feature. They are nicest warm, can be heated up in your oven or toaster oven, and freeze well. They are an evolution of a recipe from Carol Fields' Celebrating Italy, but the recipe there is for great big cakes that you cut into slices. I like the individual ones better myself.

3 scant cups flour, plus extra for kneading
3/4 t. baking powder
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 c. sugar
pinch salt
grated zest of one lemon or lime
7 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 eggs
6 T milk
1 t vanilla
milk and turbinado sugar (or ordinary sugar, if that's all you have) for dusting

Preheat oven to 350° F. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in lemon zest and salt. Add butter and rub it into the dry ingredients until you get a sandy consistency.

In another container, mix the eggs, milk and vanilla. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Mix and knead lightly until the dough is smooth and soft, adding flour only if absolutely necessary.

Divide dough into 6 portions. Roll out into coils about 6" long and form into tight S shapes. Arrange on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Don't overbake!

Fluffy pancakes

We have made the New York Times pancakes I linked to last month a couple of times now, and they are really excellent. I don't know what makes them so noticeably nicer than ordinary pancakes--the recipe just isn't all that distinctive--but Mr. Traugott's description ("thick, airy and light... truly homemade, like fresh baked bread or biscuits") is dead on. And it's true, pancakes are really much quicker and simpler to make than one tends to think of them as being.

Just in case the partners.nytimes.com link ceases to work, here is the (slightly adapted) recipe. I would hate to lose it! This makes enough for two people; the original version makes twice as much, so you should obviously feel free to double it. Don't accidentally go doubling that 2 tablespoons of butter, though! It would be 3 T. plus a little extra, of course.

FLUFFY PANCAKES

1 egg
1/2 c. whole milk
1 T. olive oil or other vegetable oil
1 1/2 T. melted butter + extra for brushing on the griddle -- so just shy of 2 T.
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t. sugar
pinch salt


1. Sift your dry ingredients together.

2. Heat the griddle over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, beat your egg until it is foamy, then beat in the oil, milk, and almost all of the the butter. Beat the dry ingredients into this mixture with a whisk, just until they're fully blended.

3. Brush the griddle with the remaining butter, and make your pancakes.

Pancakes on Thursday?

Lucian Truscott writes an article that may actually inspire me to attempt pancakes on a weekday morning. Of course we don't have a nonstick griddle, only a cast-iron one, but it is pretty well seasoned. Forty minutes is actually rather a lot of time to imagine having in the morning around here, and we'd need a little extra time to get the coffee going, but he does make it sound alarmingly managable. Maybe I'll split the difference and make them on a busy Saturday.

For my reference, once I get the nerve up: the recipe for "Mississippi Pancakes," which he swears are "thick, airy and light" and taste "truly homemade, like fresh baked bread or biscuits." I like the sound of that.

Sunday brioche

This morning, we had almond brioche, as a special Sunday treat, made by tucking a lump of some nice organic Sicilian almond paste in the center of each when I formed the loaves. These were slightly larger than our usual têtes, made from a skimpy eighth of a batch each, instead of one more generous eighth divided in two. It would have been too much food for a usual breakfast, but since we get a much later start on Sundays, it was just right. And of course larger loaves have a higher insides-to-crust ratio, which it turns out is what I want. Torn in half and melty almond paste spread all over, so delicious.

Brioche in the morning

The refrigerator has decided to work like gangbusters; maybe it had some gripe with the previous tenents and finally noticed they were gone. It's being replaced on Friday anyway, and I feel sorry for it, now that it's trying so hard. Poor fridge.

Yesterday I worked at home all day and found that, even in the middle of a pile of unshelved books and cardboard boxes, it is really not so unpleasant when there are not also several people stomping around your apartment banging on the walls and installing molding with a huge nail gun. While I wrote in blessed quietude, I also made an enormous batch of brioche dough. Brioche isn't difficult, it just takes a lot of time (though very little attention for most of that time) and a stand mixer, making it the perfect occupation for a hungry graduate student in possession of a Kitchenaid and some eggs, butter, and flour.

The recipe in Baking With Julia, courtesy of Nancy Silverton, makes enough for three big loaves. This is a lot of dough, enough to keep us in luxurious fresh morning brioche for over a week. Here's how it works: I divided the dough into eight parts after the second, long rise. Each is wrapped in plastic and frozen. Then in the morning, I put a piece in the refrigerator to thaw. Before bed, I take it out, divide it in two, form it into little round loaves, and tuck them into buttered ramekins. They go back into the refrigerator, covered, while we sleep. In the morning, I take them out and set them on the counter while the oven preheats to 375° F. While all that sorts itself out, I shower. By the time that's done, they're ready to go into the oven. They bake for fifteen to twenty minutes, only a little longer than the time it takes to get the coffee ready and roust Snark from his golden slumber. And then -- unspeakably glorious! -- we sit at a table with hot coffee and hot brioche, maybe with a little butter and jam, and know that there isn't even anything unpleasant to wash up.

Plum cake

It is the season in which we eat cake for breakfast and pretend it is wholesome because it contains fruit. Join us, won't you?

1 stick butter
1/2 c. sugar plus 2 Tbs. for topping
2 eggs
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. almond or vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
some plums

Preheat oven to 350° F. Beat the butter and 1/2 c. sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then mix thoroughly with the wet ingredients. Mix in the extract. Put this batter in a greased 10" pie pan. Pit and cut up your plums -- if they are the little kind, cut them in half; if they are larger than about 2" across, cut them in quarters. Arrange the plums cut side down on top of the batter, leaving about 1/4" to 1/2" in between the pieces. Mix together the 2 Tbs. of sugar and the cinnamon and sprinkle over the top. The resulting coat of cinnamon sugar will be quite generous. Bake for 45 minutes, in which time the cake will rise up around the plums in a beautiful way, and cool in the pan. Serve in wedges directly from the pan.

Like so many of the things I describe here, this cake is very simple to make. People adore it and will ask you to make it again and again. It's handy for times when you have to whip something up on short notice, or when you are feeling harried but feel that dessert is called for. Do not, however, plan to serve it directly out of the oven, because the plums will of course become little heat bombs of death.

We eat a slice apiece each morning until it is gone (about four days), feeling just as if we were living in some idealized French country farmhouse. It keeps very nicely out on the counter, as long as it is covered. Plastic wrap will do the job, but it gets recalcitrant about being removed and reattached by the end of the cake's tenure. Fortunately, I have just discovered how ideal the glass lid to our pasta pot is for this job. If you have such an appropriately-sized lid, you might try it, too.