Penny | Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

Sunday Brunch Part 3 – Sweet Potato Biscuits

May 23rd, 2009

No self-respecting Southerner would have a brunch without biscuits. They are a part of our culture. And sweet potato biscuits are even better. The usual filling for our biscuits is country ham, but since I have already used proscuitto with the egg dish I chose a lighter filling. I used Italian turkey sausage. The biscuits are served with a Dijon mustard sauce. There are many recipes for sweet potato biscuits but the one I really like is from Orangette’s blog. She adapted it from a Martha Stewart recipe. As an aside, I just finished reading Molly’s wonderful memoir, A Homemade Life. It is a lovely book that will bring tears to your eyes and make you laugh. She is such a talented writer that it is no wonder her blog has garnered so many awards and a devoted following.

What I like about these orange hued biscuits is the flakiness. The picture doesn’t do them justice but there are layers of goodness achieved by keeping the butter bits cold so that they create pockets of air as the biscuits rise. They slice easily and hold together when you eat them. I would say that this is a perfect biscuit recipe.

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 Tbls light brown sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

6 Tbls chilled unsalted butter

3/4 cup chilled sweet potato puree ( I used refrigerated mashed sweet potatoes )

1/3 cup buttermilk

To make the dough:

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 Tbls light brown sugar, 2 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Witha pastry blender or two knives ( or not too warm fingers ), cut in 6 Tbls chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some pea-size lumps of butter remaining. In a small bowl whisk together 3/4 cup chilled sweet potato puree and 1/3 cup buttermilk; stir quickly into flour mixture until combined ( do not overmix ).

To shape the biscuits:

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead very gently until dough comes together but is still slightly lumpy, five or six times ( If dough is too sticky, work in up to 1/4 cup additional flour ). Shape into a disk, and pat to an even 1-inch thickness. Witha floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits as close together as possible. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits ( do not reuse scraps more than once ).

Baking the Biscuits:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, with rack on lower shelf. Butter or spray an 8-inch cake pan. Arrange biscuits snugly in pan. Brush with 1/2 Tbls melted butter. Bake until golden, rotating once, 20 to 24 minutes. Yield: 8 Biscuits.

Form turkey sausage into patties small enough for the 2 inch biscuits and saute until done. Biscuits and sausage can be made ahead of time and warmed and assembled when ready to serve. Serve with mustard sauce of your choice.

Coming next: Fruit and Veggies and then Dessert.

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Sunday Brunch Part 2 – Proscuitto Egg Cups

May 22nd, 2009

Bacon and eggs are such an expected and loved breakfast entree. There are so many ways to serve them and I considered frittatas and stratas and even flirted with the idea of a savory clafouti. But in the end I chose this proscuitto egg cup dish. I saw it in Sarah Foster’s latest book Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking. I talked about Sara Foster here. This is just the kind of breakfast offering she would choose for Foster’s Market. For people on the run in the morning it makes a nice hands on kind of treat. But you can eat it with a fork if you serve it at brunch. The cups are in no way delicate and if you wanted to, you could serve them on a tiered cake stand. They have the advantage of being pretty to look at and easy to prepare. You can double the recipe for a crowd and you can assemble them ahead of time and pop them in the oven right before your brunch. Sara says that they are good warm or at room temperature. I liked mine fairly fresh from the oven.

PROSCUITTO EGG CUPS
6 paper thin slices of proscuitto
6 large eggs
1 cup shredded baby spinach
1 ounce cheddar cheese shredded, about 1/4 cup
12 grape tomatoes, halved
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 6 cup muffin tin. Line each cup with one slice of proscuitto, overlapping as you go. Break one egg in each cup. Top with shredded spinach, shredded cheese and as many halved tomatoes as will fit. I used 3 halves per cup. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. The whites of the eggs should be set and the yolks should be just a little runny. Let rest in the muffin tin for a few minutes. Run a sharp knife around the outside of the muffin cups and ( I found ) using an off set spatula lift the egg cups out to a serving platter.

Recipe can easily be doubled. As a disclaimer, I did not have Sarah’s recipe in front of me, but this is as I remember it and the results were delicious.

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Sunday Brunch Part 1 – Corn Cakes

May 20th, 2009

Last Summer, after months of renovating our Lake Lure cottage, we hosted a brunch for friends and the people who helped us with all of our improvements. These people had also become our friends. You can’t spend every day with people without coming to know them and feeling an attachment to their lives. We wanted to do something to thank them for all of their hard work and a late morning brunch seemed like a fun and relaxing way to accomplish this. I enjoyed doing it so much that I decided that inviting friends to brunch should become a regular occasion and I have come up with a menu and a plan that will make it easy for anyone to host a Sunday brunch without a lot of last minute preparation. I hope you will follow along with me.

My first offering is corn cakes. This is something a little different than the expected pancakes and they have the advantage of tasting fresh even after reheating, so you can cook them the day before your brunch and then rewarm them in the oven right before serving. You can eat them slathered with syrup and cut with a fork or pick them up and eat them like corn muffins. I enjoyed making these because I got to use the griddle pan on my stove for the first time.

I adapted this recipe from Gourmet and it is so versatile that you can add anything that appeals to you. I fixed the basic recipe but you can add sauteed green peppers, onions, jalapenos, chives or jack cheese. You can serve the cakes with maple syrup or honey butter.

CORN CAKES

1 cup cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons snipped chives
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk plus additional to thin batter if neccesary
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus additional for brushing the griddle
1 cup fresh or frozen corn, cooked, drained, and patted dry

In a bowl whisk together the cornmeal, the baking soda, the salt and the chives. Add the egg, 1 cup of the buttermilk, and 2 tablespoons of the butter and whisk the batter until it is smooth. Stir in the corn and let the batter stand for 10 minutes. The batter should be the consistency of thick pancake batter; if it is too thick, thin it with the additional buttermilk. Heat a griddle over moderate heat until it is hot, brush it lightly with some of the additional butter, and drop the batter by heaping tablespoons onto the griddle. Cook the cakes for 1 minute, or until the undersides are golden, turn them, and cook them for 1 minute more, or until the undersides are golden. Transfer the cakes to a heated platter and make more cakes with the remaining batter in the same manner, brushing the griddle lightly with some of the additional butter before cooking each batch. The cakes may be made 1 day in advance and kept covered and chilled. Reheat the cakes in a baking dish, covered tightly with foil, in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Makes about 16 corn cakes.

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Balsamic Vinegar Chicken with Wild Mushrooms

May 15th, 2009

Balsamic vinegar is a product of Modena, a province of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. True aceto balsamico requires specific sweet grapes produced in Modena which are aged in a succession of barrels made of different woods. The process can take years. For this reason it is very expensive. Most of the balsamic vinegar available today is mass produced using techniques that simulate the aging process. The bottle I got from Trader Joe’s does state on the label that it was barrel aged, but because the price was reasonable, I am assuming that it was not in barrels for any length of time. I use balsamic vinegar in salad dressings and sauteed cabbage or sprinkled over cooked greens. I love the sweetness and depth of flavor of this vinegar. It is the most assertive of all vinegars and to really experience it’s goodness try sprinkling it on strawberries for a wonderful sensation in your mouth.

I found this recipe for Balsamic Vinegar Chicken with Wild Mushrooms in an old issue of Gourmet. The article was written by David Rosengarten so I knew the results would be guarenteed. David Rosengarten is one of my favorite people in the food world. He is the author of his own cookbook called Taste and the author of The Dean and DeLuca Cookbook. For a time he had a program called Taste on the Food Network and it was one of the best productions they have ever shown. It was intelligent and insightful and David’s passion and credibility were evident with every episode. I wish the Food Network had not “dumbed down” so much. But that is another story.

We had this chicken for dinner last night and it was wonderful. There was so much depth to the flavors that it is hard to describe – woodsy and earthy from the porcini mushrooms, sweet and assertive from the vinegar, mellow from the red wine and down home good from the bacon and sauteed chicken. We are having it again tonight and I have a feeling that it will have improved with it’s rest in the refrigerator. As a matter of fact, it would make a good “do ahead” dish for guests. I served it with plain rice to soak up the juices.

BALSAMIC VINEGAR CHICKEN WITH WILD MUSHROOMS
1 ounce (about 1 cup) dried porcini mushrooms
6 chicken thighs, rinsed and patted dry ( I skinned them)
all-purpose flour for dredging
1/4 pound bacon, cut crosswise into 1/3 inch pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup fruity red wine, such as Beaujolais
1/2 cup beef broth
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup drained and chopped canned tomatoes
1 teaspoon arrowroot dissolved in 2 teaspoons cold water
minced fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves for garnish
In a small bowl let the porcini soak in 1 cup boiling water for 10 minutes, or until they are soft, and drain them well, reserving the liquid. Season the chicken with pepper and dredge it in the flour, shaking off the excess. In a large heavy skillet cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until it is golden and crisp, transfer it with a slotted spoon to paper towels, and let it drain. Add to the skillet the chicken, skin side down, and cook it, turning it occasionally, for 20 minutes, or until it is golden and crisp. Transfer the chicken with a slotted spoon to a plate, season it with salt, and discard the fat in the skillet. Add the oil to the skillet and in it cook the garlic over low heat, stirring for 1 minute. Add the reserved porcini liquid, the wine, the broth, and 3 tablespoons of the vinegar and boil the mixture for 4 minutes. Add the arrowroot mixture in a stream, stirring, stir in the tomatoes, and add the chicken, turning it to coat it with the sauce. Simmer the mixture, covered, for 10 minutes, stir in the porcini and the bacon, and simmer the mixture, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon vinegar with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle the mixture with the parsley. Serves 6.
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Barefoot Bloggers Challenge – Tuna Salad

May 14th, 2009

I would like to thank Kate of Warm Olives and Cool Cocktails for choosing the first Barefoot Blogger recipe of the month. I mean, I REALLY WANT TO THANK HER. I did not want to do this recipe. Tuna steak is not appealing to me. It is usually served red and rare and I just can’t go there. I thought maybe I would just go with a good quality canned tuna or substitute salmon. Besides I was sure my supermarket would not even have fresh tuna. So I confidently went to the market the other day and guess what! They had wild Sashimi grade tuna steaks ON SALE for $6.98 a pound. I grudgingly bought one steak for my husband’s lunch. He loves fish. I also found wasabi powder which was also called for in the recipe. Wasabi is a green horseradish grown only in Japan and the powder provides a chile -like kick with an herbal overtone according to my google search.

I did make a few adjustments to the recipe. The Barefoot Contessa cooks the tuna steaks for only 1 minute per side and that is just too rare for even my husband’s taste. So I cooked the steak for at least 3 minutes per side. I did not use the amount of salt it called for in the recipe because David is on a salt restricted diet. I was confused by the amount of lime juice specified in the recipe. It calls for 6 tablespoons ( 3 limes ). There is much more juice in 3 limes than 6 tablespoons. I made half of the recipe for the vinaigrette and used 1 lime. I also added 1 tablespoon of sugar to offset the tang of the lime.

The dish was simple to assemble and I tasted it before I called him away from his remodeling projects and it was good. Darn, I should have made more! It was excellent. “Oh yea of little faith”. I should have known that The Barefoot Contessa would not fail me. And that is why I thank Kate for forcing me to make a dish that I would have never attempted otherwise. I am glad I joined the Barefoot Bloggers for that very reason. Take some time to see what the other members are doing with this recipe. I am off the to the store to get more tuna while it is still on sale.

TUNA SALAD

Ingredients

2 pounds very fresh tuna steak, cut 1-inch thick

4 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for brushing

2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus extra for sprinkling

1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, plus extra for sprinkling

2 limes, zest grated

1 teaspoon wasabi powder

6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice (3 limes)

2 teaspoons soy sauce

10 dashes hot sauce (recommended: Tabasco)

1 to 2 ripe Hass avocados, medium diced

1/4 cup minced scallions, white and green parts (2 scallions)

1/4 cup red onion, small diced

Directions

Brush the tuna steaks with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the tuna steaks in a very hot saute pan and cook for only 1 minute on each side. Set aside on a platter.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the olive oil, salt, pepper, lime zest, wasabi, lime juice, soy sauce and hot sauce. Add the avocados to the vinaigrette.

Cut the tuna in chunks and place it in a large bowl. Add the scallions and red onion and mix well. Pour the vinaigrette mixture over the tuna and carefully mix.

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