The Ultimate Winter Couscous

I am not feeling so well today. I ran out of my meds a few days ago, which resulted in a couple of days without sleeping, which I suspect snookered my immune system. Meds are resolved now and the 18 hours of sleep I got yesterday was both glorious and required; however, this sore throat and congestion appears to be here to stay a while. I handle being sick much differently now that I live alone compared to when I lived with a partner - there's no one here to baby me, so I either baby myself or suck it up and keep on keepin' on. Today has definitely been the latter kind of day - I am being surprisingly productive given how lousy I feel.

Part of this morning involved finding the list of recipes I had intended to make from Plenty this month and realizing that I have fallen short of my goal. I had made six of my pre-planned eleven culinary adventures. For about a half an hour I got really down on myself for failing at this self-imposed task, and then some switch tripped in my brain and I realized that a) the month isn't quite over yet and b) this project is not going to lead to global devastation if it isn't perfectly complete. This is supposed to be fun. So I reviewed the recipes I had left, selected one for which I had most of the ingredients, and started cooking. I focused on enjoying myself rather than being a taskmaster, and ended up having a really good time. Something tells me this is a meta-lesson for life that I am being a bit dense about learning. ^_^

The title of the recipe is Yotam's, not mine. At first I was a little skeptical about calling something "The Ultimate", but I think this could be worthy of the name. It's quite delicious. A little on the spicy side, and that was after omitting the harissa I have yet to track down, but the heat was a great compliment to the sweetness of the roasted veggies. I would definitely make this again. As usual, the ingredients are as listed in the book and the recipe description includes my observations and alterations.

The Ultimate Winter Couscous
(p. 262, Plenty)

Serves 4, or even more

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
2 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
8 shallots, peeled
2 cinnamon sticks
4 star anise
3 bay leaves
5 tbsp olive oil
salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp hot paprika
1/4 tsp chile flakes
2 1/2 cups cubed pumpkin or butternut squash
1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
1 cup chickpeas (canned or freshly cooked)
1 1/2 cups chickpea cooking liquid and/or water
1 cup couscous
large pinch of saffron
1 cup boiling vegetable stock
3 tbsp butter, broken into pieces
2 tbsp harissa
1 oz preserved lemon, finely chopped
2 cups cilantro

Assemble ingredients!

A few omissions and substitutions to start: I could not find shallots, and therefore substituted half an onion cut up into chunks. I think in hindsight I'd use the whole onion as it wouldn't change the balance of the dish and then I wouldn't end up with half an onion waiting forlornly in the fridge for me to remember to do something with it in the future. I omitted the star anise because a) it proved difficult to find and b) I don't much care for things that taste like black liquorice, which I find it does. I used a larger grain of couscous called Jerusalem couscous as it was what I had on hand - this necessitated a slightly different cooking arrangement than what was called for in the recipe, but that was okay. I found I could omit the butter as the couscous tasted quite rich to me by the time it was done cooking, but that might be a factor of the alternate couscous, I can't rightly say. I omitted the harissa as I have yet to find any, and also omitted the preserved lemon as I wasn't able to get the jar open. I had cilantro but discovered it had gone off in spectacular style since I bought it and so omitted that as well.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place the chopped carrots, parsnips, and shallots in a large ovenproof dish.

Add the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, 4 tablespoons of the oil, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and all of the other spices, and mix well.

Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

Add the pumpkin or butternut squash and continue cooking for about 35 minutes.

While the veggies are roasting, roughly chop the apricots, portion out the chickpeas, and if you feel like getting ahead of the game, measure the couscous into a heatproof bowl, add the saffron, the remaining tablespoon of the oil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to the couscous.

About 15 minutes before the vegetables are ready, pour the boiling stock over the couscous. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or use a pot lid or a plate if that works for you), and leave to sit for about 10 minutes.

While the couscous sits, after the 35 minute roasting period for the vegetables has elapsed, add the apricots, chickpeas, and their cooking liquid/water to the roasting pan in the oven, and bake for another 10 minutes or until hot.

I found the 1 1/2 cups cooking liquid to be quite a bit; I think I'd take it down to a cup in the future. Enough to deglaze the pan and plump the apricots without turning everything soupy.

Once the couscous has finished sitting and absorbing all of the stock, fluff it with a fork and add the butter if using. Continue to fluff the couscous until the butter melts in. Cover again and leave somewhere warm.

Once the contents of the baking pan are tender, remove them from the oven. To serve, spoon some couscous into a deep plate or bowl. Stir the harissa and chopped preserved lemon into the vegetables if using; taste and add salt if necessary (I didn't find any to be required). Spoon the vegetables into the centre of the couscous and finish with plenty of cilantro leaves, if using.

I think the cilantro would probably be a nice addition, at the least to add some colour contrast to the dish. I prefer the larger couscous because it feels like I am actually eating something (for some reasons grains smaller than rice only make sense to me as ingredients in puddings, so fine-grained couscous is peculiar to me...). I think you could easily sub out the couscous for quinoa if you wanted to make the dish gluten free. I think I'd like to include the preserved lemon in a future incarnation of this dish - if it tastes the way I imagine it would, that would be lovely. The harissa would jump the heat a bit, which would also be fine, if that works for you. As I made it, the dish is warm, but certainly not hot in terms of spiciness.

All in all, this is pretty tasty.

Insomnia Scones

At some point along the spectrum of a night's insomnia, I end up having to make a decision about whether it is properly late or improperly early and what to do about it. That decision arrived around 4.45 am this morning. I decided it was improperly early, and as nothing was being gained fretting about not sleeping, I got out of bed and made scones. Here's hoping you can ward off a lousy day with a lovely breakfast.

I find scones so much faster and easier to make now that I have a food processor - simply throw all the dry ingredients in, blitz in the cold butter, and then pour into a bowl, add the wet ingredients, mix, portion, bake. It's almost magic. I've added the wet ingredients to the processor before and mixed them that way and it works, but the texture is more cake-y than flake-y. If you don't have a food processor, no worries - you can cut the butter in with a pastry blender, two knives, or pinch it in with your fingers (which is surprisingly fun).

This recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, which is a fantastic book. I bought it while working at Chapters a few years ago based on a peanut and caramel cake recipe (which alone was worth the purchase price; everything else has been a succession of delightful bonuses). She's a very conversational author for a cookbook writer, and it's a bit like talking to someone much more knowledgeable when I read it. This recipe is properly called Honey Nut Scones. As usual, the ingredient proportions are as listed in the book and the recipe description includes my observations and substitutions.

Honey Nut Scones
(p. 31, Baking)

Makes 12 small or 8 large scones

1 large egg
2 tablespoons honey (liquid is easier to work with than creamed in this recipe)
1/2 cup cold whole milk
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tbsp) cold, unsalted butter cut into small pieces
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

A few substitutions in my version: I used almond milk instead of the whole milk. Apparently this changes the tenderness of the crumb a bit, but I have never found it to be detectable. I also used pecans instead of the walnuts because I had them on hand.

Centre the rack in the oven and preheat to 400F. Line a pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat if you are lucky enough to have one.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir the milk, egg, and honey together. I found it useful to beat the egg with a fork a little to break it up before adding the other wet ingredients to it.

In a large bowl, whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Drop in the butter and working quickly cut or pinch it into the flour (you want it to stay pretty cold - cold butter equals flaky goodness). You should end up with a mixture that has pieces of butter the size of peas and some the size of oatmeal flakes and everything in between, and as Dorie often says, that is just right. Alternatively, if you have a food processor, measure the dry ingredients into the bowl, put the butter chunks on top of the dry ingredients and pulse roughly a dozen times until you get the crushed crackers-and-peas texture. I added the nuts along with the butter because I wanted them in small pieces, but you can add them when you incorporate the wet ingredients if you'd like them in more toothsome chunks. If you are working with a food processor, you can either add the wet ingredients at this point and blitz it together, or transfer the mixture to a bowl and proceed to add the wet ingredients and stir everything together with a fork. The dough will be quite wet and sticky.

At this point, Dorie advocates turning the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, dividing it into two halves and forming each portion into a rough disk. Once the disks are formed, they can be cut into six wedges each. The wedges can be placed on the prepared baking sheet and baked off. Alternately, you can scoop the scones out into more rustic looking drop scones, which was what I chose to do.

Bake the scones for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are deeply golden and firmish to the touch. They should cool (preferably on a rack) for about 10 minutes before serving.

These are not an exceptionally sweet scone - if you prefer something a bit sweeter, I'd recommend adding ~two tablespoons of brown sugar to the dry ingredients.

Mushroom and Herb Polenta

I love cooking with mushrooms. Insert whichever hallucinogenic innuendos your heart desires <<here>>. ^_^ Mushrooms are subtle, and are a bit like tofu or cauliflower in that you have some responsibility or opportunity as a cook to enhance them with other flavours. I really enjoy trying new kinds of mushrooms because they encompass such a variety of flavours and textures... One of my absolute favourite experiences of my life so far was an afternoon spent with Renaud and his friend Marie in a forest just outside Marie's village (founded before my country achieved Confederation) in southern France. The entire afternoon was whiled away wandering around with a woven basket and a small knife, mushroom hunting. I found a lovely mess of black trumpet-looking mushrooms and a few of these delicate-stemmed pale lavender ones that my hosts seemed thrilled to see. I also learned what a wild boar wallow looked like, which is also useful, if not quite edible in the immediate sense. I don't remember what exactly we ate that night, other than it involved some of the mushrooms, a fabulous cheese, some kind of bread, and fresh herbs from the kitchen garden. I still delight in the memories of that kitchen garden... Anyway, that meal I made last night seems similar to the one we feasted on after that afternoon in the forest, if my hazy, happy memories serve me right. It's a simple and very quick meal - I am certain it was together in roughly 15 minutes.

I recommend that you use as much of a variety of mushrooms as you can find for this recipe. I chose one of those mixed packs from the supermarket that contained white button, crimini (brown), shiitake, oyster, and huge portobello mushrooms. I had intended to rehydrate some of the dried porcini mushrooms I have to add to the mix as well, but I was hungry and decided to forgo that step in favour of eating that much more quickly. I also recommend instant polenta as a time saving option - it takes about 5 minutes compared to traditional polenta's 50 minute cook time. I doubled the amount of the polenta in this recipe so I had the option of having it in the runny, mash state this recipe calls for and then having the leftovers set up so I could cut them into chunks for snacking on. Yotam says in the intro notes to this recipe that his father would cut the set polenta into chunks, fry them in a little bit of olive oil, and then serve them in a chunky salad of tomato, cucumber, and romaine lettuce dressed with a bit of red wine vinegar and some olive oil. Sounds good to me. As usual, all ingredients are as listed in the book and the recipe instructions incorporate my observations and alterations.

Mushroom and Herb Polenta
(p. 264, Plenty)

Serves 2

4 tbsp olive oil
4 cups mixed mushrooms, very large ones halved
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp chopped tarragon
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 tbsp truffle oil
salt and black pepper
2 1/4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup polenta (instant or traditional)
3 oz Parmesan, grated
2 1/2 tbsp butter
1 tsp finely chopped rosemary
1 tbsp chopped chervil
4 oz Taleggio (rind removed), cut into 3/8-inch slices

Assemble ingredients!

So a few omissions and substitutions to start: I could not find fresh tarragon or chervil for love or money, so they were omitted from the preparations. I also did not have truffle oil (it has been ordered but will not arrive for a while), so I used a bit of my black truffle salt. It gave a bit of nuance, but it was hard to balance adding enough to get the truffle flavour without over-salting the dish. For that reason alone I know I will make this again once the correct oil gets here, just to see what the difference is. I also couldn't find Taleggio, nor the white Castello that I read was the best substitute for it, so I opted to use some Camembert because I know I love it, I know it melts well, and it reminds me of being in France and hunting mushrooms. I figured those were reasons enough for its inclusion. Also, for this recipe I feel strongly that you must use fresh thyme and rosemary. Dried herbs just won't work here.

First step is prepping your mushrooms. I chose to cut all of mine into roughly bite sized pieces. I included the stems because they are exactly the same as the caps and why waste them?

Heat half of the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add half the mushrooms and fry for a few moments without moving them around so that they cook and get some golden brown patches on their surfaces. Remove from the pan and repeat with the rest of the oil and mushrooms. Off heat, return all of the mushrooms to the pan and add the garlic (I finely diced mine), tarragon, thyme, truffle oil, and some salt and pepper. Keep warm and enjoy how awesome your kitchen smells. 

While the mushrooms are cooking, gather the butter, chop the rosemary, and grate the Parmesan and have ready.

Bring the stock to boil in a saucepan. Slowly pour the polenta into the boiling stock in a steady stream, whisking continually until it is all added so there are no lumps. Reduce the heat to minimum and cook, stirring constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon. The polenta is ready when it leaves the sides of the pan but is still runny - for instant polenta this will take roughly five minutes; with traditional polenta it could take up to 50 and require additional stock if it seems to dry out before it's ready. End goal of this stage is a thick, porridge consistency.

Preheat the broiler in your oven. When the polenta is ready, stir in the butter, rosemary, Parmesan, and half the chervil if using. Season with salt and pepper (I used the truffle salt here too, trying to bump up the flavour a bit more). Spread the polenta over a heatproof dish and top with the mushrooms. Top the mushrooms with the sliced cheese. I chose to leave the rind on my Camembert because it's edible and I enjoy it. I realize it effects the aesthetics, but I prefer not to waste food.

Place the pan under the broiler until the cheese melts and bubbles, just a moment or two. Remove from heat, garnish with the remaining chervil if using, and serve hot.

My thanks to Jennifer Echo who didn't mind that I started cooking and futzing around with my camera part way through our conversation, and who helped me make a dent in all this deliciousness. I am definitely going to make this again. Given how fast and delicious this is, it might become one of my default dinners, the kind you make when you are just too tired to cook. I would love to make this with Farmer's Market mushrooms, too... there's a stall at the downtown market back home, but I didn't notice one at the market here last year. I'll have to look again once the market resumes in Spring.

A Very Full Tart

Today is Valentine's Day. It's a weird day at the best of times with the "buy to show your love" rhetorics clashing with the "we don't need a holiday to show love, we do it all the time" factions, both colliding with the "I am so in love and everyone needs to know!" consortiums. I knew from the get-go this morning that I wanted a quiet day to myself. I decided I would stay in instead of going to campus and spend the day alternating between reading ('The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins) and cooking something time-consuming.

"Time-consuming" as a category is actually fairly hard to find in Plenty. Most of the recipes are fairly straightforward and remarkably swift. I'd had the recipe for the Very Full Tart in mind to make sometime this month and realized today would be the perfect time. Everything was in the fridge, the day was wide open, and I already had puff pastry in the freezer which would save me the extra step of making up a pie crust. Done and done. I assembled everything and got to work.

Saying up front - this recipe does take quite a while to put together. In addition to creating the pie crust and the multiple rounds of roasting for the veggies, the final bake itself is a healthy 35-45 minutes. I highly recommend that you read through the recipe carefully to assess the time it will take. That said, nothing about this recipe is hard and there is plenty of hands off time while the ingredients roast, caramelize, bake, etc. The other caveat I feel needs to be made ahead of time is to choose the smallest vegetables you can for this tart. I went with the smallest I could find for the zucchini and eggplant, used half of a leftover onion and sweet potato and still ended up with enough roasted veggies to make a 12" diameter tart, another 8" diameter tart, and still have a good cup-and-some roasted veggies left over (which are delicious and hardly a problem). For a recipe that says it makes a 9" diameter tart to feed 4-6 people, the yield was a LOT. So feel free to go with the tiniest veggies you can find - I can't see it being a problem. As usual, the ingredients and proportions are as indicated in the book, while the instructions incorporate my observations and alterations.


Very Full Tart
(p. 84, Plenty)

Serves 4-6 according to the book.

1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
about 6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium eggplant, cut into 2-inch dice
salt and black pepper
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
1 small zucchini, cut into 1-inch dice
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
11 oz pie crust dough
8 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
1/3 cup ricotta
4 1/4 oz feta
7 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 medium eggs
1 cup heavy cream

Assemble ingredients!

Preheat the oven to 400F. Use a small knife to cut around the stem of each pepper. Lift it out along with the seeds. Shake the peppers until the remaining seeds are removed and discard the seeds and stems. Place both peppers in a baking dish, drizzle with some olive oil and put on the top shelf of the oven.

 In a medium bowl, mix the diced eggplant with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, some salt, and some pepper.

Spread into a large baking pan (I used a 9"x13" Pyrex and that was a good size) and place in the oven on the shelf under the baking peppers. Bake for 12 minutes. While the eggplant is baking, you can prep the other ingredients if you haven't already.

After 12 minutes, add the diced sweet potato to the baking eggplant and stir gently. Return to the oven to roast for an additional 12 minutes.

Add the zucchini to the pan, stir gently and roast for another 10-12 minutes.

Once that 12 minute increment has completed, the peppers should be nicely browned and all of the rest of the vegetables cooked. Take everything out of the oven. Let the vegetables sit for a bit to cool. Wrap the pan with the peppers in it in a bit of foil and let cool; once they are cool, peel the skins off and chop the flesh into rough chunks. Once everything has been taken out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 325F.

In a medium frying pan on the stove, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onions with the bay leaves and some salt for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they turn brown, soft, and sweet. I forgot about the bay leaves, but it didn't ruin the dish.

Once onions are soft and caramelized, remove from heat. Remove the bay leaves and set aside to cool.

Lightly grease a 9-inch, loose bottomed tart pan.  Roll out the pie crust dough into a circle roughly 1/8th of an inch thick and large enough to line the pan with some dough overhanging the rim. Carefully fit the dough into the pan, pressing it into the fluting. Trim the edges of the crust with a knife or by rolling a rolling pin over the edge of the pan. Apparently I completely forgot to take pictures of this part. Whoops. Line the dough with a piece of parchment paper and fill it with pie weights/dried beans/rice and blind bake (with weights in) for 30 minutes. Once the blind bake is complete, remove the paper and weights, and then return the crust to the oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crust starts to turn golden brown. Once the crust is golden, remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little.  I opted to use the puff pastry I already had in my freezer, but the process was essentially identical. I found the inside of the crust puffed up more than I preferred with the use of the puff pastry, which wasn't a problem; I simply used a fork to carefully pull up a few layers of the puff pastry from the inner circle of the tart, thereby deepening the centre of the crust a bit. If you use a regular pie dough crust you will not have to monkey with that step. ^_^

To assemble the tart, scatter the cooked onion over the slightly cooled crust. I decided to chop the ends of my green onions in there as well, to use them up. Why not?

Top the scattered onions with the roasted vegetables, arranging them evenly. Scatter half the thyme leaves over the vegetables. I forgot the thyme (this was about the point where I realized I had enough filling to make two tarts, so I was making a round of pie dough at this stage for the second tart and got a little absent-minded when it came to the thyme), but it's omission was not devastating.

 Next, dot the vegetables with small amounts of both cheeses. I found even with the larger tart that I didn't use the full amount of either cheese, but that might just be my preferences.

Slice the tomatoes in half and arrange them on top of the cheese, nestling them down into the filling a bit.

In a separate container, whisk together the eggs and the cream with some salt and a few grinds of black pepper. I subbed out the cream for almond milk, which worked just fine. Carefully pour the custard mixture over the tart - you're aiming to fill in the gaps between the vegetables and the crust, without completely covering the top layer of cheese and tomatoes. Scatter the remaining thyme on top, if you remember. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the filling sets and everything starts to turn a little golden. Remove the tart from the oven once set and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Then enjoy!

I can't even begin to say how delicious this is. I wasn't sure about the eggplant because I find myself continually suspicious of that particular vegetable, but this was incredible. I'd make it again and again... and that is after having to get through the two tarts this ended up making for me! I think I'd make it as a frittata as well - the roasted veggies would work well in that context, and it would save the fuss of dealing with a crust. Don't get me wrong, a crust is nice sometimes, but for special occasions. On an everyday kind of basis, I'd rather not have the extra fuss of that step. I suggest pairing it with an arugula salad with some kind of citrus balsamic vinaigrette if you have the ability.

(Exciting) Stuffed Cabbage

Cabbage. Most people wrinkle their noses, make a face, avoid it at all costs. I can understand that. Until recently, the only way I'd eat cabbage was my Grama's cabbage rolls, dutifully devoured at special occasion family meals. They were delicious - some kind of exception to the rule. However, sometime in the last year I've figured out that I like cabbage and have started going out of my way to eat more of it. It's filling, it's cheap, and it keeps practically forever in the fridge. What's not to love?

When I first started flipping through Plenty, I noticed there was an entire chapter titled "Brassicas". I actually got excited, which must be some kind of sign that I am growing up. The recipe that I made tonight was called simply "Stuffed Cabbage"... which is exactly what it is, I suppose. But I figured if I posted a recipe called "Stuffed Cabbage" people might think to themselves "Oh cabbage, that is so bland... let's not bother". Which would be sad. Because this stuffed cabbage is DELICIOUS.

Prepping the cabbage is a little fussy, but aside from that the recipe is very straightforward and really, really tasty. Even if you don't want to mess around with the cabbage, make the filling just once to try it. Totally worth it. Now, to stop sounding so excited and get on with the recipe... As usual, ingredient list and proportions are as stated in the book and the instructions include my observations and alterations.

Stuffed Cabbage 
(p. 95, Plenty)

Serves 4 (according to the book; I think this could very comfortably serve five or even six)

2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 oz vermicelli noodles (not the rice variety)
7/8 cup basmati rice
1 1/4 cup water
salt
1 medium white cabbage
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
3/4 cup ricotta
1/4 cup Parmesan
3 tbsp chopped mint
4 tbsp chopped parsley, plus extra to finish
3 garlic cloves, crushed
black pepper
1 cup dry white wine
6 tbsp vegetable stock
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil

Assemble ingredients!

So a few substitutions to start: I used thin spaghetti in place of the non-rice vermicelli. There is no reason in the book as to why to not use rice vermicelli, and no suggested preference for non-rice vermicelli (mung bean or sweet potato, for example?), so I went with the only other non-rice fine noodle I had in the flat. Having made the recipe, I can now say that I think it should be doable with rice vermicelli and can't quite figure out why the alteration... Wish there had been a bit of an explanation. Anyway, back on point here. I also used regular green cabbage because it was available and as usual subbed out the pine nuts for chopped, toasted pecans because I had them on hand. A quick note about cooking with wine - go ahead and buy a cheaper bottle, but buy something you'd at least drink straight. I say this because the point of most liquids in a recipe is to reduce, which concentrates their flavours. If your wine is not terribly palatable, concentrating it will not help the dish any. Besides, then you can have an enjoyable rather than endurable glass while you are cooking. ^_~

Gather the butter, rice, noodles, water and salt together. The next few stages go pretty quickly, so having this part prepped in advance is to your advantage here.

I put the required salt in with the rice so I wouldn't forget it.

To start, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.

When the butter is melted, break the vermicelli into 3/4-inch long lengths and add them to the pan. Mine weren't quite that small, but bite-size is a good goal.

Stir fry the noodles for 1 to 2 minutes. Yotam cautions here that the noodles can burn very quickly at this stage... I didn't have any problems, but I wonder what noodles he was using and whether or not that changes things. Anyway, as soon as the noodles start turning golden (or the butter foam starts subsiding) add the rice and the salt and stir well.

Then add the water and bring everything to a boil by turning the heat up. Once everything is boiling, turn the heat down to minimum, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat after 20 minutes and let stand 10 minutes before removing the lid and letting things cool off for a while.

While the rice is cooking, prepare the cabbage. There are two ways of doing this. The first involves cutting the cabbage in half vertically, peeling off the leaves and blanching them in boiling water for 6-8 minutes or until they are mostly tender. If you have a big cabbage, this may take a few batches. Alternatively, you can trim the base off of your cabbage and submerge it in a pot of boiling water and peel off the outside leaves as they cook. I ended up using a hybrid method of sorts. I cut off the base of the cabbage, let it sit in the boiling water until the leaves were soft enough to peel back and then pulled them off and let them stay in the boiling water until they were tender. After the first 6 or 8 leaves, I had to start cutting them off of the bottom of the cabbage, which felt a bit like being a mad scientist. Not to overstate the obvious, but with either of these methods be careful. Boiling water isn't a terribly friendly substance.

Once you have as many cabbage leaves as you think you will need, rinse the leaves under cool water and pat dry with a lint free dishtowel or paper towel. Hindsight tells me you'll want roughly 12 good-sized cabbage leaves, and perhaps a few extras just in case my idea of filling-to-cabbage proportions are different than yours. Also, as I was grabbing a measuring cup from my cupboard, I discovered someone had stamped a message on the inside of my cabinet:

It made me laugh.

Preheat the oven to 350F, and pull out a 9"x13" (or some variant on large) oven-proof baking pan. In a large bowl, add the cooked rice mixture, the nuts, the ricotta, half the Parmesan, the herbs, the garlic (I chopped mine instead of crushing it), and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix everything together really well with a fork. Tasting the filling for seasoning at this point really surprised me in a very pleasant way - this filling is fantastic! I found myself thinking of it as a potential base for arancini, but that would be a project for another day.

Use the cooked cabbage leaves to create parcels of whatever size works for you - I found a ratio of one cabbage leaf to two or three generous fork-fulls of filling worked well. I rolled mine like a burrito (flip up the bottom, flip in the sides and roll all the way up), but you can even roll them like paper tubes and leave the side- ends open, according to Yotam.

Place each parcel seam-side down in the baking pan and cozy them in together. If you have gaps in your pan, Yotam recommends filling them in with cabbage trimmings. I didn't end up with any gaps.

In a separate container whisk together the wine, stock, sugar, olive oil and generous pinches of salt and pepper.

Pour this over the cabbage parcels and bake at 350F for ~40 minutes or until almost all of the liquid is gone. Sprinkle the parcels with the remaining Parmesan cheese and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese melts and turns golden. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I had no idea what I would think of this recipe when I started making it, but like I said earlier, it really surprised me in a great way. I would definitely make this again. And I think I'd recommend it to people who say that they really hate cabbage. The cabbage in this dish was tender and a tiny bit sweet and almost a bit fruity from the wine and the olive oil, which contrasted nicely with the dairy and herb notes of the rice and noodle filling. As a bonus, the filling is good warm or at room temperature which means it's going to be fantastic as lunch tomorrow.

Pear Crostini and Unexpected Caramel

Outside my window, today is unexpectedly beautiful. It's deliciously sunny and warm, the icicles on the building are melting and twinkling away, and I can hear the cars down the street encounter a puddle at the corner. It seems very much like Spring might be coming, a relief after all of the cold and wind lately. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but I can enjoy the moment. I've spent today moving between different tasks and even brains... the cleaning part of me, the school-reading part of me, the pleasure-reading part of me, the art part, the cook. I can't seem to settle to anything for more than forty minutes at a time. Which I suppose is okay, as long as things are getting done, right?

It was four o'clock recently and I realized that I haven't yet had anything to eat today. Not ideal, but I haven't had much of an appetite lately. I pondered what to make - something light and spring-like if I could manage it because the weather seems to be inspiring that kind of thing. Flipping through Plenty yielded what might be a lovely dessert or fantastic brunch course or maybe an appetizer in the form of Yotam's Pear Crostini recipe. This was an excellent set of flavours - definitely try it out. As usual, all of the ingredients are as outlined in the book but the recipe instructions incorporate my observations and substitutions.

Pear Crostini
(p. 278, Plenty)

Serves 4 generously

1/4 cup pine nuts
5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
1 garlic clove, peeled
salt and black pepper
4 large slices sourdough bread, cut 1 1/2 inches thick
3 semi-ripe pears (they need to be firm)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
4 to 5 oz good quality goat cheese
picked chervil leaves to garnish

Assemble ingredients!

 A few omissions and substitutions to begin with - I substituted pecans for the listed pine nuts as I had them on hand, and I omitted the chervil as I didn't have any. I also scaled down the recipe as I was just feeding myself and this didn't seem like the kind of dish that would hold well for later consumption.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the nuts, 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, the garlic, a pinch of salt and some black pepper into the bowl of a food processor.

 Work into a course and wet paste. I found that I didn't get an even paste in my food processor, likely because it was such a small volume to work with. I think if you had a blender, that might be the better choice of appliance. Use a brush to apply the paste to one side of every sourdough slice. As my paste was pretty chunky still, I ended up using a combination of a spoon and my fingers to spread things around. You may find a brush works well, or you may need to improvise a little. ^_^ Lay the slices on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

 Once the bread has toasted to your desired darkness, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

While the bread is in the oven, prepare the pears. Stand each pear on a cutting board and trim off a very thin layer of skin from each side. Then cut the pear lengthways into four thick slices. I ended up cutting mine into five slices - the middle one contained the core. I just trimmed off the sides of that slice and added them to the other slices.

Remove the core with the tip of a knife if required. Place the slices into a bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, the sugar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Toss gently. Initially, I had some hesitation about the presence of the olive oil here, but it smelled great which eased my mind a bit.

Take a ridged griddle pan (if you have one) and place on high heat until piping hot. I didn't have one, so I substituted a large frying pan. Lay the pear slices in the pan and leave for about a minute each side, just to make char marks if you are using the griddle pan. Or you could do what I did and throw the remainder oil/sugar/lemon juice solution from the bowl into the pan and let the pear slices simmer in that for a while. Why not?

The pears started to brown after a moment or two and were flipped when they got golden. The oil/sugar/lemon juice solution started to caramelize in the pan which added a really fantastic aroma and a bit more flavour to the mix. Plus, once the pears were done, I got the treat of scraping the caramel out of the pan and eating it before it hardened and had to be scrubbed away. Why waste an unexpected treat?

Once the pears are golden on both sides, carefully remove them from the heat and prepare to assemble the crostini. Layer thin slices of the cheese (mine has been in the freezer so it crumbles rather than slices neatly) with the thick slices of pear. You want to be able to see both clearly, so let them overlap and create some height.

Return the baking pan to the oven and let warm for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese starts to melt just a little. Garnish with the chervil, if using, drizzle with the additional olive oil if desired, and sprinkle with more freshly ground black pepper. Then enjoy.

SO GOOD.

Also, I think I might need to try to make that caramel intentionally...