Have a rugelach (arugula?)

We had an entertaining homophonic episode at dinner the other night. Confusion ensued when our diners were exhorted to "eat a rugelach" which was misinterpreted to mean "eat arugula," understandable given that the Picky Eater had made an arugula salad for dinner and I was serving my great grandmother's nut strudels aka rugelach, for dessert.

Have a rugelach!

Either choice was a good option, depending upon the number of calories one wanted to ingest. The rugelach are devilishly addictive, and it's easy to consume half a dozen (circa 900 calories) in the blink of an eye. The salad of greens, roasted cauliflower, pomegranate seeds, and pecans had fewer calories naturally, plus the bonus of more staying power, less fat, good flavor, and tons of nutrients. While the Picky Eater may have the will power to eschew the rugelach, I had to content myself with the compromise of eating some of both (not at the same time!)

Or, arugala

Start with the salad-
Arugula Salad with Roasted Cauliflower et al.
I like my salads heavy on the solids and light on the greens, but it's your salad and your call......

4-6 cups mixed arugula & baby spinach, washed, dried & stemmed
1 small head of cauliflower
1 cup whole pecans
1 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
1/4 c olive oil
Salt & pepper

Dressing:
2:1 ratio of olive oil & lemon juice (or a light balsamic or champagne vinegar). (I used 1/3 cup oil to 3 Tb of balsamic vinegar.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Toast the pecans in a roasting pan for about five minutes, until just turning. Put the nuts aside to cool, then chop them into good sized chunks. Keep the oven on for the cauliflower.

Wash the cauliflower and cut it into bite-size florets. Wipe out the roasting pan that you used for the pecans and toss the cauliflower in it with the 1/4 cup olive oil and a generous amount of salt & pepper. Bake for 20-25 minutes until just tender and nicely browned, checking and tossing every ten minutes or so. Remove from the roasting pan and allow the cauliflower to cool.

Just before serving whisk the olive oil and citrus or vinegar together until emulsified.

Toss the greens, cauliflower, nuts, and pomegranate seeds together with the viniagrette. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Serves 4 or one Picky Eater.

And finish with "a rugelach:"
Like many family recipe's, my great grandmother Pesse's rugelach come with a story attached to them. An acquaintance, Mrs. Friedman,  refused to share her Hungarian strudel dough recipe, and as an immigrant from the Ukraine, my great grandmother was unfamiliar with it. The secretive lady always  made her strudels when she had company coming, and so Pesse went visiting a few days before her friend expected out-of-town guests. Pesse chatted with her and watched her make the cookies, then went right home, made a batch herself, and they took their rightful place as a legendary family dessert!

Sour cream pastry rolled paper thin and topped with jelly, nuts, cinnamon sugar.- ready to roll.
 Blurry photo looks like it belongs in my mother's 1952 vintage Gourmet Cookbook!

Pesse Zeff’s Nut Strudels
Be sure to make the dough the day before you want to bake.

5 c. flour
1 lb. butter, cut into 1” cubes
3 egg yolks
2 c. sour cream
1 t. vanilla
1 TB baking powder
1 TB sugar

Filling:
Jelly (fruit or orange marmalade)
Nuts, finely chopped
2 c. sugar mixed with
2 t. cinnamon

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut the butter in with a pastry knife until the pieces are the size of large peas. Mix in the cream, egg yolks, and vanilla. Form the dough into a flat disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.

Cut the dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each piece until very thin (almost like paper!) on a large piece of parchment paper or a floured board. On one long side only, spread a thin line of jelly about 2” wide. Sprinkle the entire surface of the dough with nuts and cinnamon sugar.

Starting at the jelly strip end, gently roll the pastry into a neat loaf, folding in the side edges after you make the first fold over the jelly.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, and prick the top of each roll well with a fork, to allow steam to escape during baking. Sprinkle the tops of the loaves with more cinnamon sugar.

Bake in a 350° oven for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned. Cut into 1” slices on the diagonal. Use a very sharp knife to avoid cracking. These freeze well if they make it to that far.

Makes about 8 dozen.

Omit the sugar and vanilla and you can use this dough for appetizer strudels with a mushroom duxelle filling and grated cheese scattered on the dough. Bake as directed with a some grated cheese added on top during the last 10 minutes of baking.

Ta-Da!! The Perfect Hard-boiled Egg

Undeniably perfect!!

While my immediate family members may scoff, managing to consistently boil the perfect egg, pristine in its bright white & yellow purity counts as quite an achievement in my book, especially after decades of trials and tribulations in the hard boiled egg department. Any egg boiler, experienced professional or neophyte knows the signs of a badly boiled egg- the bumpy exterior from challenges while peeling and the dull lemon colored yolk with a dark grey-green shadow rim, both of which make an egg unacceptable for stuffing and beg to be chopped for egg salad with a smidgen of curry as a color brightener.

May I speak of egg boiling disasters? The worst in my personal experience took place in my early catering days, three dozen of the ugliest stuffed eggs I've ever seen, two frantic cooks, and one very dissatisfied customer. A bomb all around that put me off hard-boiled eggs for years. (And my husband, less than enamored of stuffed eggs, wishes that the attitude had been permanent!) Then there are the Passover seders with bowls of peeled eggs in salted water, naked and looking like they had been birthed through barbed wire. Double yuck.

And do what or whom do I owe my new found success? None other than the goddess of compulsive cooks everywhere, Mme. Julia Child, whose instructions I had passed over for many a year because they included suggestions like pricking each egg before boiling (sure to crack open for me), boiling them a 2nd time for precisely 10 seconds, and chilling them in ice twice- first for 2 minutes and then again for 20 minutes. Sounds like way too much work for me! But, I finally caught on to her basic cooking method, and that, plus another truc, are the secrets to my success-

Brown eggs! they always speak to me of Old MacDonald and all things fresh and wholesome,
no matter how long they have been in the refrigerator.

#1- Sorry to say it, but you cannot in my experience successfully boil fresh eggs. According to internet experts(?) they must be at least two weeks old to avoid peeling problems. Another reason to always have a dozen extra eggs stashed in the back of the refrigerator!

#2- My official recipe
Place your eggs in a saucepan and cover them with 1" of cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as the water is at a rolling boil, cover the pan and pull it off the heat. Let the eggs sit covered for exactly 17 minutes (better set your timer!) After the 17 minutes is up, immediately drain off the hot water and run cold water over the eggs for several minutes. You can even drop a few ice cubes into the pan as well. While the cold water is running, crack the eggs in several places, which allows the water to somewhat permeate the infamous "inner membrane," source of many an egg peeling woe. After about 10 minutes in ice water, peel and use your eggs. If you need to store them for later use, cover them in cold water and refrigerate, peeled or unpeeled.

Now that you have these perfectly delightful hard-boiled eggs, it's time to do something with them. My choice is always a creamy salad with crunchy veggies, some mayo and yogurt, and a bit of tang. Tang? Where do you get the tang? How about a batch of Smitten kitchen's pickled celery (no cooking required) and some pickled carrots, courtesy of David Lebovitz.

Pickled Celery
This is my new secret weapon to perk up any and all of the various kitchen sink salads I concoct for the odd lunch or dinner from whatever is festering in the fridge.

1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
4 teaspoons Kosher salt (you can go up to 1 tablespoon if using the lighter weight Diamond brand; here’s why)
1 Tb teaspoons granulated sugar
4 stalks celery, trimmed, diced tiny

Combine the vinegar, water, Kosher salt and sugar in a jar and shake it until the salt and sugar dissolve. Add the diced celery to the jar, cover it and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, ideally one hour and up to one week.
Makes about one cup.

Pickled Carrots 
Makes one pint

1 pound (450 g) carrots, peeled
1 1/4 cups (310 ml) water
1 cup (280 ml) cider vinegar
1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
2 garlic cloves, lightly-crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons fennel, dill, or anise seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons coarse salt
2 bay leaves

Cut the carrots into sticks approximately the size of your fourth finger. Bring a medium-sized pot of lightly-salted water to a boil. (Use a non-reactive pot.)

When the water boils, drop the carrots in and simmer for one minute. Pour into a colander and rinse under cold water. Drain thoroughly.

In the same pot, heat the remaining ingredients. Once it begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for two minutes.

Remove from heat and add the carrot sticks. Cool until room temperature, then put into jars and chill.

Carrot sticks should be made at least one day in advance, and will keep for up to four weeks in the refrigerator.

Delicious Egg Salad

Egg salad on toast with pickled carrots. What a lunch!

4 large eggs
1 heaped teaspoon Dijon
2 teaspoons minced shallot, scallion or red onion
2 Tb pickled celery (or more, to taste)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise or  plain yogurt
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional additions: Chopped parsley, minced olives, 1/2 tsp. curry powder, fresh chopped celery

Peel the eggs, chop them, and place in a medium bowl. Add the pickled celery, Dijon mustard, shallot, mayo or yogurt, salt and pepper, and any of the optional additions. Mix gently.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve on toasted whole grain bread, if you have it.

Pickled celery and eggs also make excellent additions to potato salad, whether of the American or French variety. Here are two of my favorite recipes-

Family Potato Salad
This recipe is from my Great Aunt Margaret, graduate of UCSF Medical School Class of 1924. My mother lived Aunt Margaret and Uncle Maurice Zeff, while she went to school at UC Berkeley during WWII. Aunt Margaret taught her to marinate the potatoes while they were still warm. (That’s the secret to the recipe!)

5 lbs. boiling potatoes
olive oil to taste
wine vinegar to taste
1 red onion, minced (or 1 bunch scallions)
4 stalks celery, diced
8 eggs, hardboiled, peeled & diced
1/4 c. parsley, minced
2 Tb Dijon mustard
1 c. mayonnaise (Best Foods)
salt & pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes until tender. Let cool slightly and peel, if desired. Roughly slice or cube into a large bowl. Sprinkle generously with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Toss gently to distribute seasonings. Cool completely

Add the remaining ingredients and toss to mix. Correct the seasoning and add more mayonnaise if desired.
Refrigerate before serving.  Serves 12-16.

A Salade Nicoise with sugar snap peas. I know, you're asking
"Where did she get those tomatoes so early in the season?" Oh, the joys of living in California!

French Potato Salad
5 lbs. boiling potatoes
olive oil to taste
wine vinegar to taste
salt & pepper
1 bunch scallions, minced
1/2 c. chopped parsley

Mustard Vinaigrette
2 Tb Dijon mustard
1 t. salt
1/3 c. lemon juice
1 1/2 c. olive oil

Boil the potatoes until tender. Let cool slightly and peel, if desired. Roughly slice or cube into a large bowl. Sprinkle generously with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Toss gently to distribute seasonings. Cool completely

Make the vinaigrette: Whisk mustard, salt, and lemon juice together; then gradually whisk in the olive oil, until thoroughly combined.

Gently mix the parsley and chopped scallions with the potatoes, then drizzle on the vinaigrette and gently mix again with a spatula. Correct the seasoning.

Use this potato salad as the base for Salade Niçoise: arrange it on a lettuce-lined platter with steamed green beans, tomatoes, hardboiled eggs, olives, tuna, and, if you like, capers and anchovies.
From The Way to Cook by Julia Child

A Tale of Two Honey Cakes

Looking good, but tasting not so good!

More often than I like, it seems that one's childhood memories have vastly improved on reality. I was reminded of this once again when baking my grandmother's honey cake. I remembered it as moist, chock full of walnuts and redolent of whiskey, which nicely cut the cake's sweetness, and made it taste absolutely yummy.  All of which was pretty surprising because my grandmother was the sort of person who tended to beat most things, including cakes and her family's faults, to death. While admitting that there might well have been an element of operator error, the results of our honey cake baking during the Great Holiday Bake-Off Day were less than stellar. I NEVER bake cakes that end up tasting dry, bland and blah. What a disappointment! I do suspect that there were probably some issues-  possible over baking the small loaf size cakes and weak coffee flavoring, but come on ... Someone, usually the Daddy, who still frets over starving children in China, ends up consuming any cake-like substance laying on the counter, but not this.

Then the Picky Eater comes home for winter break and informs me that Smitten Kitchen is supposed to have an outstanding honey cake recipe. So, over the weekend I decided to have a rematch with honey cake using the Smitten Kitchen recipe, and must admit that I had better results- added a ton of walnuts to the recipe, under baked it, and gave it a final whiskey marinade. While it didn't break into our top 5 cake list (Zucchini-Orange, Apple-Walnut, Oatmeal, Carrot, Sour Cream Struesel) it was good enough that I didn't feel hesitant about carting it off to a party.

So, here I give you two honey cake recipes. When I recover from my baking coma I will try my grandmother's recipe once again and see if I can do it justice.

Down to the last piece of the  Majestic & Moist Honey Cake

Smitten Kitchen's Majestic and Moist Honey Cake
Adapted from Marcy Goldman’s Treasure of Jewish Holiday Baking

I used my 10" springform pan with a tube insert and it worked perfectly. I suspect that minimizing the diameter of the cake with a tube pan enables you to under bake the cake without being left with a soggy center. As my tube insert has a scalloped bottom, I ignored the directions to line it with parchment paper! Just made sure that it was well greased and floured.

3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (15 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons (about 8 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup (235 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (340 grams) honey
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (95 grams) brown sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup warm (235 ml) coffee or strong tea
1/2 cup (120 ml) fresh orange juice
1/2 cup (60 ml) whiskey
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (a Travels with the Picky Eater blog addition)

Fits in three loaf pans, two 9-inch square or round cake pans, one 9 or 10 inch tube or bundt cake pan, or one 9 by 13 inch sheet cake.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously grease pan(s) with butter and then flour them. For tube or angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and 1/4 cup whiskey. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)

Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom. Add the chopped walnuts to the batter.

Spoon batter into prepared pan(s).  Place cake pan(s) on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).

Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, loaf cakes, about 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet style cakes, baking time is 40 to 45 minutes.

Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan. In the tradition of the Bernice Fine honey cakes, brush the cake(s) with the remaining 1/4 cup of whiskey while still warm.

My grandmother's
secret ingredient.

The Bernice Fine Honey Cake
Makes 2 standard loaf pan cakes

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup honey
3/4 cup strong coffee, cooled (I can just see my grandmother pouring out the dregs from her morning Sunbeam percolator brew.)
1/2 cup brandy or whiskey
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
4 cups flour
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter and flour two loaf pans and line the bottoms with buttered parchment paper (my grandmother used waxed paper- bleh!!)

Beat the eggs and sugar together well. Add the honey and beat again until well blended. Sift the baing powder, baking soda, flour, allspice & salt  together. Stir 1/4 cup of the flour mixture into the chopped nuts. Stir together the coffee and 1/4 cup of the liquor.

Add the remaining dry ingredients to the egg mixture alternately with the liquid- 1/3 flour, 1/2 liquid, 1/3 flour, 1/2 liquid, 1/3 flour - beating only until just mixed together. Stir in the floured nuts and then the butter.

Divide the batter between the two prepared pans. Bake for about 1 hour, until the cake is firm in the center and has started to pull away from the sides of the pan. Turn out from the baking pans after 15 minutes and brush with the remaining 1/4 cup liquor. When cool, wrap the cakes individually in foil and allow to age at least 24 hours.

Honey cakes waiting for their dousing with Jim Beam.

To redeem my grandmother's reputation, I offer our family Mandelbrodt (literally "Almond Bread") recipe. The Jewish version of biscotti, moister and richer than many biscotti. When we were young my brother loved to stuff as many mandelbrodt as he could into a tall glass, fill it with milk and eat the resulting glop with a spoon. Ah, the simple joys of childhood!

Mandelbrodt, fresh from the oven and waiting for an encounter with a glass of milk.

Mandelbrodt
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup (or more) toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
whole raw almonds

Preheat the oven to 350  degrees. Butter two cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper.

Beat together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and oil until well blended. Mix in the chopped almonds. Sift/stir the salt, flour and baking powder together, and then add to the eggs mixture, beating only until just combined. The dough will be wet, but should be solid enough to form loaves.

With floured hands, form long narrow loaves on the cookie sheets, adding a little additional flour if necessary. They should be about 1 1/2 inches high and 2 1/2 - 3 inches wide. Make sure that there is 1-2 inches space between the loaves so that they have room to spread. Push raw almonds into the top of the dough in the direction of the width of the loaves at 1 inch intervals.

Unbaked loaves ready for the oven.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until the loaves are lightly browned on the edges. Immediately cut into 1 1/2 inch wide slices, cutting between the almonds on top. Turn each cookie on its side on the cookie sheet and return to the oven until lightly browned, about another 20 - 25 minutes.