The Empty Chair and Savory Brown Butter Soda Bread

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...We had an empty chair at our Thanksgiving table this year. Bad weather grounded the plane of a friend whose visit was much anticipated, and, I'm sure that disappointment is what caused me to slip into a reverie later in the evening. The trigger was that empty chair. I hadn't thought about it in decades, but for years my parents set an extra place at our Thanksgiving table. It was set it for Roger, a young soldier, who came into their lives just before Thanksgiving in 1944. A blizzard brought trains in the Chicago area to a halt and dashed Roger's plans to visit his parents before being shipped overseas. Roger had just turned 18 when my father, who adopted strays, found him in Union Station and brought him home to spend the holiday with us. We had a full house that year. Roger got the sofa and the other empty beds were taken by my grandmother and an old friend of my mother. Roger charmed my grandmother and that was not easy to do. As a matter of fact, my mother, who was not a believer, did a lot of praying when Maude came to visit. Maude, however, took Roger to her heart, and accepted as an article of faith, her responsibility to feed and entertain him. She even made her wartime version of soda bread for him. I'm told they genuinely enjoyed each others company. He spent the remainder of his leave with my family and then left for duty in the Mediterranean. He did not survive the Battle of Anzio. My parents were affected by his loss and for years thereafter they set a place for Roger at our Thanksgiving table. I had forgotten about that holiday all those years ago until the empty chair at my own table set memory in motion and reminded me, yet again, how blessed my life has been. As to the bread, I'd like to think my own need to feed and nurture comes from those early examples that were shown to me. This bread does not come from Maude but I know she would approve. I found the recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and it really is unusual. It's makes a savory oat bread that's flavored with rosemary and black pepper. When temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, I hope you'll keep this loaf in mind. It's a nice accompaniment to the hearty soups and stews of winter and if you serve it with lots of good butter while it is still warm, I think you'll be pleased. Here's how it is made.

Brown Butter Soda Bread...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Bon Appetit magazine

Ingredients:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper plus additional for topping
1-3/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg white, beaten

Directions:
1) Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375 degrees F. Stir butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until melted and golden brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
2) Stir flour, oats, sugar, rosemary, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in large bowl to blend. Pour buttermilk and melted browned butter over flour mixture; stir with fork until flour mixture is moistened.
3) Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Knead gently until dough comes together, about 7 turns. Divide in half. Shape each half into ball; flatten each into 6-inch round. Place rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 5 inches apart. Brush tops with beaten egg white. Sprinkle lightly with ground black pepper. Using small sharp knife, cut 1/2-inch-deep X in top of each dough round.
4) Bake breads until deep golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool breads on rack at least 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Yield: 2 loaves.

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Brown-Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I found the recipe for these cookies in the July issue of Food and Wine magazine. It was developed by Lori Baker and her huge cookies will please cookie monsters of any age. The cookies are made with browned butter and they need an overnight chill before they can be formed and baked. Chilling allows the dough to soak up any liquid that has been added to it and, in this case, it also prevents the butter from melting and pooling when the dough goes in a hot oven. Experts think that drier and firmer doughs produce cookies that have a better consistency. My experts, specifically the Silver Fox and our teenage neighbors, weren't terribly concerned with consistency when they gave these saucer sized cookie a big thumbs up. These cookies are cracker crisp and perfect for dunking in a glass of cold milk. If you prefer something softer and more chewy, you'll have to play with the baking time. I suspect these are good keepers, but they disappeared before I could test and speak with informed certainty about their shelf life. This is a nice cookie and I think those of you who try this recipe will be pleased. Here's how the cookies are made.

Brown-Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Lori Baker and Food and Wine magazine

Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions:
1) In a medium saucepan, cook butter over moderate heat until it is browned and nutty-smelling, about 5 minutes. Transfer butter to a small bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
2) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.
3) In bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, beat room temperature browned butter with granulated and light brown sugars at medium speed until light and fluffy, scraping down bowl halfway through, about 7 minutes. Beat in whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla.
4) At low speed, beat in dry ingredients, scraping down bowl as needed. Mix in chopped chocolate. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
5) When ready to proceed, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 3 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop 1/4-cup mounds of cookie dough onto each baking sheet. There should be 6 cookies per sheet. Bake one sheet at a time for about 18 minutes, until cookies are just firm and golden brown on the bottom. Transfer sheet to a rack to cool. Repeat to bake the remaining cookies. Serve the cookies warm or at room temperature. Yield: 18 cookies.

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Two Years Ago Today: Dolmas  -  Stuffed Grape Leaves with Cucumber and Yogurt Sauce

Three Years Ago Today: Oatmeal Cake

Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Brown Butter

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I remember the cooks and food of my childhood with great affection. I was surrounded by women who loved to cook and knew their way around the kitchen. Back in the day, they did more with a wooden spoon than I can do today, despite an arsenal of appliances and a well-equipped kitchen. Fortunately, they also loved to teach and once they realized I came from a home where food was viewed as a necessary evil, they took me under their collective wings and taught me how to cook. I have only a handful of memories from my mother's kitchen. I remember tearing bread for turkey stuffing and baking apples in the fall, but what first comes to mind is making breakfast with my father on Sunday morning. My daddy's specialty was scrambled eggs served in fried bologna cups that were topped with ketchup and hot sauce. I can hear you groaning. I have friends who, to this day, insist that I married young to escape that Sunday ritual. I say nothing!  I'm guessing that most men have a dish they call their own and like to cook for special or ceremonial occasions. Bob, my Silver Fox, loves to make holiday breakfasts and his specialty is pancakes. Not just any pancakes, mind you. He likes to experiment and my job is to find new recipes for him to try. The recipe I'm featuring today is his latest experiment. The brown butter is the star here. The pancakes are fine, but they are very bland and if you come to the table expecting  fall flavors, you're bound to be disappointed.  The taste of pumpkin is barely perceptible and the recipe is saved only because the pancakes are topped with a spiced brown butter. Fortunately, the pancakes are easy to make and they look quite lovely on a plate.  If you are looking for a new breakfast dish you might want to give this recipe a try.  They pancakes need to cook a bit longer than usual or they'll be gummy and you might want to add some cinnamon and nutmeg to the batter to perk up the flavor. Here's how they are made.

Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Brown Butter...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Taste of Home

Ingredients:
Cinnamon Brown Butter
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Pancakes
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1-1/3 cups milk
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup ricotta cheese

Directions:
1) To make cinnamon brown butter: Place butter in a small heavy saucepan and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Add maple syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg. Remove from heat. Stir in pecans.
2) To make pancakes: Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, pumpkin and cheese. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a greased hot griddle, turning when bubbles form on top. Cook until second side is golden brown. Serve with brown butter. Yield: 14 pancakes and 1 cup butter.

One Year Ago Today: Uppakra - Swedish Potato Cookies

Two Years Ago Today: Green Tomato Mincemeat

Three Years Ago Today: Balsamic Onion Marmalade

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This is another cookie jar favorite that I know our grandsons will enjoy. As a matter of fact, if I had to limit myself to a single kind of cookie for the for the remainder of my life, these brown sugar treasures would be my choice. I think they are fantastic. They are crispy, chewy, buttery, and delicious. Simply stated, they are everything I want a cookie to be. The brown butter gives them a rich, nutty taste without adding enormously to the complexity of the recipe. It has to be watched carefully, to be sure, but it is not a difficult task to accomplish. Your cookies will have better texture if you use a soft, fresh brown sugar that is easy to work. The only problem I've ever had with this recipe, is that the cookies tend to run together when they are baked twelve to a cookie sheet. I've solved that by only baking six per pan. Genius is like that. It takes a bit more time, but if appearances are important, it is worth the extra time. These cookies are good keepers when they are stored in an airtight container. I have also frozen baked cookies with some success. I hope you will try this recipe. It comes from Cook's Illustrated, so you know it has been thoroughly tested and is trouble free. I suspect that those of you who try it will be really pleased with the results. Here's the recipe.

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Cook's Illustrated, More Best Recipes

Ingredients:
14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1-3/4 sticks)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (about 1-3/4 ounces)
2 cups packed dark brown sugar (14 ounces), divided*
2 cups + 2 tablespoons, unbleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1) Adjust oven racks to middle and lower middle position. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 large (18 by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. In shallow dish or pie plate, mix granulated sugar and 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, rubbing between fingers, to combined. Cover with plastic wrap. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in medium bowl. Set aside.
2) Heat 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Continue to cook, swirling pan constantly until butter it is golden brown (it should smell nutty), 1 to 3 minutes. Watch butter carefully as it can go from brown to burnt quickly. Remove from heat and pour browned butter to large heat-proof bowl. Add remaining 4 tablespoons of butter and mix until melted. Cool for 15 minutes.
3) Add remaining 1-3/4 cups brown sugar and salt to bowl with cooled butter. Mix until no sugar lumps remain, scraping down sides of bowl with rubber spatula. Add whole egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract, mixing well to incorporate. Batter should go from a dark brown color to light. Scrape down bowl. Add flour mixture and mix to just combined. Give dough one final stir with spatula to distribute any remaining dry ingredients.
Divide dough into 24 portions, each about 2 tablespoons (2 tablespoon ice cream/cookie scoop works well here). Shape into balls. Working in batches, roll 12 balls in sugar/brown sugar mixture to coat. Distribute 6 dough balls per baking sheet.
4) Bake two sheets at a time, rotating half way though, until cookies are browned and puffy, about 12 to14 minutes. Edges of cookies should start to set and centers will look soft (cookies will look raw in cracks). It is important not over-bake.
5) Cool cookies on baking sheet 5 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack and cool completely. Repeat above steps, starting with rolling remaining dough balls in sugar mixture. Baking pans can be re-used after baked cookies have been removed. Parchment can also be re-used for second batch. Cookies can be stored in an air tight container. Yield 24 cookies.

One Year Ago Today: Cuban-Style Pork Roast

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Brown Butter and Bourbon Pound Cake

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This cake will go down in family annuls as one that nearly rent years of  marital bliss. It is a brown butter pound cake that is made with a copious amount of bourbon. It was made for a derby day party that we, in the end,  could not attend, but for which I had committed a dessert. I decided to make this cake because it was unusual, mercifully easy to make, and its use of bourbon would connect it to Derby Day and the state of Kentucky. Now, before I go any further, I must tell you that I don't know a lot about hard liqueur. Bourbon is bourbon as far as I'm concerned, so, in the course of making this cake, I grabbed the first bottle I found in the pantry and went about my work. It turns out I grabbed a bottle of special "sippin' whiskey" that the Silver Fox keeps on hand for a friend who visits us sporadically. I was glibly pouring a cup and a half of something called Jefferson's Presidential Select into the cakes, when my beloved walked into the kitchen and did the guy version of nearly fainting. Apparently, I was using the champagne  of bourbons in my pound cakes. Who knew?  Were the cakes worth it?  The brown butter gives the cake a unique richness and nutty flavor. The bourbon keeps it really moist and its flavor blends nicely with the butter.  The cake lacks eye appeal, so, for the party, I decided to use it as a base for peach shortcake. It would also make a wonderful trifle, but I don't think it works as a stand alone dessert. If you decide to try this cake, make it a full 24 hours before you plan to serve it. The recipe makes way more syrup than is needed for one cake, so you can safely cut the quantities for the syrup in half.  If you like the flavor of brown butter you will enjoy this cake. Here's the recipe.

Brown Butter and Bourbon Pound Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of  R.J. Cooper and the James Beard Foundation

Ingredients:

Cake

1-1/4 cup (2-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup bourbon
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Syrup

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 vanilla bean split
1/4 cup bourbon

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and lightly flour an 8-1/2 x 4-1/2-inch loaf pan.
2) Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat until milk solids on bottom are a dark chocolate brown and butter smells nutty. Transfer to a shallow bowl and place in freezer to cool until just congealed. (Butter should be somewhat solid for mixing stage.)
3) Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4) Beat congealed brown butter, bourbon, and sugars with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.
5) Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan. Smooth out top and rap pan on counter to settle batter. Bake until cake is golden-brown and a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean, about an hour.
6) Meanwhile, to make syrup: Combine sugar, water, and vanilla bean in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and simmer until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Stir in bourbon.
7) When cake is done, remove from oven and let cool in pan for 30 minutes. Invert cake onto a rack and let cool completely, right side up, for an hour, brushing the pound cake with the syrup every 5 minutes.
Yield: 1 loaf.

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Spaghetti with Shaved Asparagus, Brown Butter and Toasted Walnuts

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Within the confines of my home this is still called ABC pasta. The first time I made the dish, I used asparagus, brown butter and capellini, and, while the ingredients have changed a bit, the name stuck. This is a fast and easy dish to execute. It has a spare elegance and makes a lovely, light meal that is worthy of family and friends. It's also a great way to use some of the asparagus that floods markets at this time of year. While you'll want to use thick spears to make this, it will be necessary to sacrifice the first strip you shave from the top and each side of the asparagus spears. The asparagus is "cooked" only by the heat of the pasta, so you want to make sure it is crisp tender, not tough, when it is tossed with the macaroni. The brown butter sauce is simple to put together and once the asparagus has been shaved you are ten minutes away from dinner. There is a nutty richness to the butter sauce that I think you will enjoy. The recipe appears below.

Now, I have a special request to make of you. I'm looking for a food joke. The kind that will make folks groan when they hear it. It's time for retaliation. I have for most of my adult life been surrounded by pragmatic people who love the order of numbers and the power of logic. They are wonderful folks, one and all. Let's just say that their humor is sometimes beyond the pale. I was working in the kitchen when the Silver Fox, normally quite circumspect, let loose a belly laugh. He was paging through a book on relativity. "You have to hear this, Mary." Are your ready? Here's the gist of his metaphysical gut buster. A battered turtle crawled in a police station to report he had been mugged by three snails. When ask to be more specific, the turtle said, "It happened so fast, I can't remember." Help! Poor Albert Einstein is rolling in his grave. It may be time for separate vacations.

Spaghetti with Shaved Asparagus, Brown Butter and Toasted Walnuts...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite

Ingredients:
Brown Butter Sauce
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Spaghetti
12 ounces spaghetti
1 bunch (1 pound) asparagus, tough ends removed, shaved with a vegetable peeler
1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts
1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions:
1) To make brown butter sauce: Melt butter and salt in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat. Add chopped fresh sage and cook, stirring often, until butter begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in 2 tablespoons heavy cream and remove from the heat.
2) To make pasta: Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, until al dente. Drain pasta and return to pot. Gently fold in shaved asparagus.
3) To serve: Add brown butter to pasta and asparagus and toss to coat. Fold in cheese and walnuts. Adjust salt if necessary. Serve immediately. Yield: 4 servings.






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