Sunday, November 16, 2014

Lapin au Cidre – Cider Braised Rabbit

Lapin au cidre is a specialty from Normandy and, as in most of the Norman dishes, apple and cream feature prominently. The dual apple role is played here by calvados, an apple brandy, supported by a dry alcoholic apple cider. The addition of sour cream or crème fraîche creates a luscious sauce you’ll want to eat with a spoon. 

On the Hunt for deliciousness
As I mentioned in my preview post,  I am hosting Sunday Supper this week with my talented friend, Tara, from Noshing with the Nolands. Our theme is On the Hunt, so we are sharing recipes with ingredients that are hunted or foraged, including wild game like venison, boar and rabbit or vegetarian options like mushrooms, truffles, wild berries or even edible wildflowers and greens. And to make sure that our urban members could also take part, the recipes can even include a special ingredient that you have to source online or hunt down at specialty markets!

I grew up with a father and uncles and cousins who loved to hunt so game wasn’t unusual fare but if you didn’t hunt for it, you didn’t eat it. When we were living in Paris though, many moons ago, it was fun to go to the market or grocery store and see frogs’ legs right along side the chicken and rabbit as prominently displayed as the beef. The rabbits were either whole, minus the heads, or more commonly, only the thigh/leg pieces were offered. Those are what I tended to buy. We called them bunny haunches and I’d sing “Little Bunny Fufu” as they simmered. I know, I know, I have a perverse sense of humor. A thousand years as a Girl Scout will do that to you.

One day I opened my mailbox to find a big promotional envelope inviting me to join a recipe club. For a number of francs that escapes me now, I could get recipe cards by mail each month. The envelope contained sample cards, which I was free to keep even if I didn’t join. We never know how long we’ll live any place, so I didn’t sign up but I have used the sample cards many times through the years.

The reverse has the recipe and says in tiny letters: Cette fiche extraite de la collection Mes Recettes Préférées est un échantillon
Or This record extracted from the collection My Favorite Recipes is a sample.


Ingredients
1 large carrot
1 stalk celery
3 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
6 rabbit thigh and legs (Mine weighed about 2lb 10 oz or 1.2 kg)
1/3 cup or 80ml calvados (Substitute cognac if you don’t have calvados.)
1 cup or 240ml dry apple cider (I used Strongbow Original which is still available in Dubai.)
1/2 cup or about 125g crème fraîche or thick sour cream
Several sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

To serve: Good handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Method
Peel the carrots, shallots and the garlic. Chop them finely, along with the celery.

Heat the butter and oil in pan large enough to fit all of the rabbit pieces in one layer without too much crowding.



Brown the rabbit pieces on both sides in the pan. Once they are browned, add the vegetables. Don't forget the shallots like I did. I added them later, after the calvados. You add them now, okay?



Fry them for a few minutes and then add the calvados. You are supposed to flame it at this point but I couldn’t get mine to light for a photo.

Add in the cider and season with salt and pepper.



Add in the thyme and bay leaves. Cover the pot and cook over a low flame for about 50-60 minutes.



At the end of the cooking time, add in the crème fraiche and mix well.

Cook for a few more minutes with the lid off so that the sauce can reduce in volume and thicken slightly.



Taste the sauce and add more salt or pepper if needed. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and sing a round of "Little Bunny Fufu" to serve.



Enjoy!

Have a look at all the fabulous On the Hunt recipes my Sunday Supper friends are sharing today! And scroll down for details on how to join us for the Twitter chat this evening that Tara will be hosting.

Spread it on Thick

Nibbles and Sides

The Main Event

Sweet Treats


Saturday, November 15, 2014

Biscoff Cookie Butter Bundt Cake #NationalBundtDay

Cookie butter plus actual butter means a sweet, tender Bundt cake with a subtle gingerbread flavor. 

Happy National Bundt Day! I couldn’t let this great day go unrecognized so I scoured the interwebs for an appropriate cake to make with the last of my jar of cookie butter, otherwise known as Speculoos or Biscoff.

I adapted this recipe from A Beautiful Bite and then halved the amounts to fit in a smaller Bundt pan.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 200g sugar
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup or 145g Speculoos Cookie Butter or Biscoff Butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup or 60ml buttermilk

To decorate: icing or confectioners’ sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Prepare a 6-cup Bundt pan (or larger) by spraying it liberally with the Baking Pam or greasing and flouring it. My Nordic Ware Bavaria Bundt pan is 10-cup so you can see that the batter only came part way up the side.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Cream together the butter, the cookie butter, and sugar together in a mixer until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition.



Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk and beat well.



Spoon the batter into your prepared pan. Smooth the top and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.



Remove from oven, let cool for about 10 minutes.


Invert on a wire rack and cool completely.




To serve:  Sift powdered sugar on top.



Enjoy!



Heads up! This just in! To celebrate National Bundt Day, Nordic Ware is going to be giving away a new edition pan to one Bundt baking winner! As much as I'd like to keep this information to myself so I can win, Bundt baking is all about spreading the love, so here are the details:

Simply tag your prettiest Bundt Cake photos with the hashtag #NationalBundtDay on Instagram. Make sure you're following @nordicwareusa and show us your latest and greatest creations made with a Nordic Ware pan. Nordic Ware will choose a winner on Monday who will receive a brand new, not-yet-released 2015 Bundt shape before anyone else has access! So get baking and Instagramming, Bundt friends!

If anyone who saw it here first wins, please come back and let me know so I can do the happy dance with you! Meanwhile, I am going to be flooding my own Instagram feed (@foodlustpeoplelove) with Nordic Ware Bundt pan cakes! They are the best!

BundtBakers
Click on the graphic to see a whole bunch of Bundt Baker links. 






Thursday, November 13, 2014

Spicy Asian Noodle Salad with Lobster

With spicy dressing, juicy lumps of lobster and fragrant bean thread noodles this Spicy Asian Noodle Salad is like a vacation in your mouth.

AKA Vacation in Your Mouth
There’s just something special about lobster but you can also sub tiger prawns or shrimp.

Yes, please to Comfort Food
When someone offers to send you a copy of a cookbook called Adventures in Comfort Food: Incredible, Delicious and New Recipes from a Unique, Small-Town Restaurant, you do not turn them down. You say, “Yes, please!” After all, here we are coming into the cool season and comfort food is what it’s all about. This particular cookbook is full of recipes from chef and owner, Kerry Altiero, of the small town award-winning Maine restaurant Café Miranda, which brings comfort food up a whole bunch of notches, serving favorites like Lobster Mac and Cheese and Brussels Sprouts in Cream and dressed up hot dogs.

As Chef Altiero says in the introduction; “We offer a huge menu that mixes traditional American fare with Italian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Thai, vegan . . . whatever strikes our fancy. Our motto is “Because We Can.” We serve wonderful, surprising, innovative food that defies expectations and wins over all kinds of eaters. This cookbook will help you do the same at home, whether you are cooking for world-weary sophisticates or picky toddlers. Your kitchen may never be the same.”

And while I am under no obligation to tell you only nice things about this book, I must admit that I have only nice things to say. Most of the recipes have just a handful of ingredients and the simple preparations let the freshness and quality of those ingredients shine through. If that appeals to you as much as it appealed to me, I am pleased to tell you that I also have one copy to give away! Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post and enter the drawing.

Vacation in My Mouth
How these cookbook blog tours work is that we are given a list of recipes that can be shared. I was most intrigued by the dish called Vacation in Your Mouth, from the Party Food chapter, so that’s the one I chose. I mean, really. With a title like that, how could I resist?

Years and years ago, when I was living in Brazil, a dear Burmese friend taught me how to make a fresh and refreshing salad with softened bean thread noodles, crispy fried ground pork and dried shrimp, all tossed in a lime vinaigrette with chilies and cilantro. I used to make it all the time in a great big bowl, because it was a family favorite and then, because I struggled to find the dried shrimp, it got out of rotation.

This beautiful dish from the Adventures in Comfort Food cookbook reminded me of what we had been missing, albeit it on a fancier, smaller scale. And I realized that the dried shrimp are not absolutely essential. Lobster works too! Okay, I admit we may not have it with lobster every time, but I will definitely be serving this again, perhaps with shrimp or even crab meat.

I made the recipe pretty much as written, except for substituting a spicy pepper for the poblano, which was one of the chef’s suggestions, and I couldn’t find baby romaine so I bought a local green for scooping up the salad.

Serves 2

Ingredients
For the salad:
4 oz or 113g cooked lobster meat
1 poblano pepper, seeded and minced (Or sub a spicy pepper of your choice.)
2 scallions, green and white parts, sliced on the bias
Juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons or 30ml extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon or 15ml Thai fish sauce
6 leaves basil, preferably Thai, shredded
4 sprigs cilantro
1⁄4 cup or 44g Thai bean thread or rice vermicelli noodles, soaked and chopped (I about doubled this because I couldn’t for the life of me get the bean thread noodles apart to weigh out only 44g.)

For garnishing:
Pinch kimchi flakes
1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
2 sprigs cilantro
2 thin rounds of lime
10 leaves romaine lettuce

Method
Mix together everything but the garnishes.



Spoon the mixture into martini glasses.

Make sure to include all the good limey, salty juice. Sprinkle with the kimchi flakes, black sesame seeds and cilantro.


Garnish with a lime round on the edge of each glass. Place the glasses on a plate and arrange the romaine leaves around them, attractively.



Fill leaves with mixture—crunch!

The chef’s drink suggestion: A nice Moscato with a little bit of sweet goes well with the spicy flavors. Or perhaps enjoy with a nice simple beer such as a Sebago Saddleback Ale.

Tell me that doesn't look like a Vacation in Your Mouth?! 

Enjoy!

Buy your own copy of Adventures in Comfort Food: Incredible, Delicious and New Recipes from a Unique, Small-Town Restaurant by following this link.




*This post contains affiliate links. I received a copy of the cookbook for review purposes with no other compensation.*



On the Hunt

Braised rabbit or bunny haunches, as we call like to call them in our family.
This Sunday I’m hosting Sunday Supper again with my partner in the perfect time zone, Tara of Noshing with the Nolands. Our theme is On the Hunt and we’ll be sharing recipes for dishes made with ingredients you hunt for, so that will include game like venison and rabbit as well as foraged wild mushrooms or pick-your-own veggies and fruit or perhaps even some exotic spice you have to travel to a distance shore or ethnic market to source.

Here’s a preview of the recipes to come this Sunday!

Spread it on Thick

Nibbles and Sides

The Main Event

Sweet Treats


Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze #BloggerCLUE


Rumored to be just like the ones from a well-known coffee chain, these beautifully spiced pumpkin scones with spiced glaze are perfect with a cup of coffee or tea. 

If you’ve been reading along here for a while you’ve already heard me say how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know fellow bloggers during the last three years of public blogging. I sincerely wish I had time to read and comment on every blog that I love every time there is a new post, but that wouldn’t leave any time for my own cooking and writing and other fun stuff, so something’s got to give. I do try to get around to them as often as I can. But what if reading another blog was part of a group assignment? Well, I’d have to do that, right?! Have you guessed already that I have joined another bloggers group to justify my blog reading obsession? You are so smart.

Bloggers C.L.U.E. Society
This one’s called Bloggers C.L.U.E. Society and the premise is that we are matched up with another food blogger each month and we need search his or her blog for a recipe to fit that month’s theme. And make it. We’ll introduce ourselves and our readers to each other with each post, until perhaps someday, we’ve made a recipe from and gotten to know every blogger in the group.

This is our inaugural Bloggers C.L.U.E. post. I was assigned Bakeaway With Me and our theme is Thanksgiving. As I browsed through Kathy’s blog, I had to put on my detective cap to figure out more about her since her profile doesn't reveal anything. Hunting for clues was part of the fun though! I discovered that she is married to a man with Dutch heritage and they live with their children in New Jersey. Her mother’s family is of Lebanese descent and her father’s family came over from Hungary, so she has a fabulous and eclectic mixture of ethnic recipes on her blog, as well as a bunch from another group she participates in called French Fridays with Dorie. Deciding on just one recipe to try was going to be a challenge!

Since our theme is Thanksgiving, I finally settled on one that I know my daughters will love. I’m not much of a sweet eater but I must confess that I took my usual taste test bite from one scone and ended up eating it all. I’ve never had the real thing from Starbucks so I can’t compare but, boy, are these good! I’ve decided that they are going to be breakfast for Christmas morning. (My girls won't be home for Thanksgiving, more's the pity!) Kathy says that they freeze well, so I tested that statement and can report that she is telling the absolute truth. I glazed them and froze them in a single layer and they thawed beautifully, looking and tasting just like fresh baked. Which will make Christmas morning even easier.




Here’s Kathy’s recipe. Hope you love it as much as I did! I’ve added the metric measures for those of you who prefer to use a scale for baking.

Pumpkin Scones (Starbucks Copycat)

Yield: 8 scones
Prep Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 15 min
adapted from Todd Wilbur

Ingredients
For the scones:
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup, packed, or 65g brown sugar,
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted COLD butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup or 120g pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
3 tablespoons milk or cream
1 large egg
2 tablespoons maple syrup

For the spiced glaze:
1 cup or 125g confectioners' or icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons milk

Method
Preheat oven to 425°F or 220°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and salt.



Add cold butter, and using a pastry blender, work the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse crumbs. You want to see some very small pieces of the butter.



In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, cream, egg and maple syrup.



Pour mixture over the dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until a soft dough forms.


Working on a lightly floured surface, knead the dough a few times until it comes together.  With lightly floured hands, pat the dough into a rectangle measuring roughly 7x9 inches or 18x23cm. (I patted with my hands then used my rolling pin to just lightly stretch the dough to the right size.)

Using a large knife or a pizza cutter, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, then cut into 2 even pieces crosswise, making four rectangles. Then cut each rectangle into two triangles, making 8 triangles.



Place scones onto prepared baking sheet. Place into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.



To make the spiced glaze, combine confectioners’ sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and milk. Whisk until smooth.



When the scones are done, cool for 10 minutes, then drizzle the glaze over each scone, and spread with back of spoon.



Allow glaze to set before serving.



These scones freeze beautifully.  So save some for later!


Enjoy!

Just look at the gorgeous inside! I can't even express how GOOD these are!




Here are a few links in case you'd like to join me in connecting with Kathy and Bakeaway with Me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.



I’m pleased to introduce you to more of my fellow Blogger C.L.U.E. Society members:


.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Soft and Tender Dinner Rolls #BreadBakers


If there is any bread more delicious than a soft and tender white dinner roll, brushed with melted butter, I’d like to meet it. Because I don’t think there is one.

My grandmother was a fabulous cook – actually, they both were – but in this instance I’m talking about my maternal grandmother. Thanksgiving and Christmas were usually celebrated at her house and she put on quite the spread. I honestly don’t remember if she baked them every time, but I remember eating those soft white bread rolls that came in the foil (or was it some sort of weird cardboard?) pan, ready to bake. And they were wonderful. Not too yeasty that a child might object, brushed with butter and so soft and smushy that you could make a dough ball out of them, perfect for nibbling as you waited your turn to fill your plate with the other beautiful dishes. Those rolls were what I was hoping to recreate here for our Bread Bakers Thanksgiving event, where we have been challenged by our talented host, Holly of A Baker’s House, to bake bread fit for a special occasion.

I started with this recipe from All Things Delicious and made a few alterations to the ingredients and the method but I followed Hannah’s instructions for making the dough into classic round dinner rolls. (She shows several different ways of shaping the dough into special rolls so make sure to go have a look if you need some ideas.)  I have no idea if my Red Star yeast was more active than whatever was used in the original recipe, but I ended up with monster rolls. Beautiful, soft and tender but so big! Next time I will roll them half the size to get the rolls of my childhood memories. But I will definitely be baking these again.

If you are looking for a special bread to bake for your holiday table, make sure to scroll on down to see the list of 21 recipes we are sharing today. Many thanks to Holly for hosting!

Ingredients
2 cups or 475ml milk
1/3 cup or 80g butter
1/4 oz or 7g yeast (one sachet – I used Red Star Quick Rise Yeast.)
1 egg
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
2 teaspoons salt
5 cups or 625g flour, plus extra for kneading and sprinkling on before baking

1/8 cup or 30g melted butter for brushing on after the rolls are baked

Method
Put the milk in a large microwaveable vessel (I use the biggest silicone measuring cup* from this set. It was a gift from my cousin years ago and I love it!) and add in the butter. Microwave until the butter is mostly melted, about 3-4 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes.

Put the yeast in your mixing bowl and pour in about a cup or 240ml (no need to measure exactly) of the warm milk/butter mixture and set aside for about 10 minutes. You are hoping that the yeast activates and gets all bubbly. If it doesn’t, you need to buy some fresh yeast and start over.

Now add in 3 cups or 375g of flour, the egg and the salt to your mixing bowl and mix on medium speed until all of the flour is incorporated.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula to mix in any flour left there. It’s a very runny batter at this point.

You can see the bubbly yeast/butter/milk there on the left. That's what it should look like!


Continue mixing and add the remaining flour by spoonfuls until all is incorporated. Now it should be wet and soft sticky dough but that’s what is needed for soft and tender rolls.


Now mix for 3-4 minutes, changing to the dough hook, if necessary, to help develop the gluten.

The finished dough

Cover the bowl with cling film and allow the dough to rise for about an hour or until it doubles in size.


Meanwhile, line your baking pan with parchment paper, a silicone mat or grease it liberally with oil or butter.

Once the first rise is done, punch the dough down and knead it briefly on a floured surface. Cut the dough ball into halves, then cut the halves into half again. Cut each piece into three to make very large bread rolls, or six to make more reasonably sized ones.


Roll the dough pieces into balls, pinching them from underneath to stretch the tops so they are nice and round. Put the balls, side by side, pinched side down, in your prepared baking pan.



Sprinkle the tops of the rolls with flour and put the whole baking pan in a clean, new garbage bag, capturing some air before you clip it shut, so that the bag doesn’t touch the top of the bread rolls. Allow the rolls to rise for about an hour.



About 15 minutes (or however long your oven takes) before the second rise is completed, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Bake the dinner rolls in your preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown all over.



Brush with melted butter and serve warm, if possible.




Enjoy!

Tender, soft and fluffy. Just as a dinner roll should be. 




Our celebratory breads, for your enjoyment!

BreadBakers


#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme.  Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.


*This is an Amazon affiliate link.