Winter shenanigans

Winter is in full swing, complete with lots of recent gloom and damp in Canberra. A good excuse to try various antidotes, including:

Knit! I started trying to re-teach myself to knit about 2 years ago, and I am delighted to say that this week I taught myself how to cast off, and I finished this scarf. It's a bit rustic-looking, but it's the first knitting project I've ever completed and I'm proud of it - especially the buttons, which I added for design interest and which actually work. Miss B has already requested one of her own.

Sew! I'm continuing to work through my double-sided kitchen cloth project - here's my latest effort. I particularly like these fabrics, both separately and together.

Cook winter food! I had a ridiculous amount of leftover mashed potato in the fridge at the end of the week, and I was too lazy to make gnocchi, which had been my first plan. So instead I made a potato gatto (one of our longstanding Secret Dinners), which is great comfort food on a cold night.

Get out of town! We've had a trip to Sydney booked for this weekend for months, and I was hoping for the usual dramatic difference in temperature and weather between Canberra and...pretty much everywhere else. It was warmer, but not any brighter for the most part. Undaunted, we hit some of our favorite spots and tried out some new stuff as well. A high point (in every sense) was our early-evening walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge, complete with stunning views.

Our objective in crossing the harbour was to visit an American-style burger joint, Batch Burgers & Espresso, at the foot of the bridge's north side in Kirribilli. It came highly recommended from fellow expats, and was totally worth the walk - hands down the best burger I've had in Australia.

The walk back was even better, giving us a birds'-eye view of the final weekend of Vivid Sydney, especially the Opera House:

My iPhone camera does not do it justice - if you click on the link above you'll get a much better idea of the effect.

And last but not least, my favorite winter activity and the reason for our Sydney weekend - ice hockey! We got tickets to see the USA-Canada Ice Hockey Classic, the first time in a looooong time (3+ years I think) that I've been able to see professional-level hockey live. It wasn't the NHL playoffs, and I'm pretty sure I haven't infected Miss B with the hockey love, but as far as I was concerned it was worth the trip.

Kickass fries

Deep-fried anything is one of my most entrenched cooking fears. Well, not a fear, exactly, but I avoid it. Hot oil is dangerous, it’s smelly; you have to put food into it very carefully, and then watch it like a hawk until it’s time to fish it out even more carefully. Thus frying anything involves placing yourself at length in close proximity to both the danger and the smell, while in your concentration neglecting any small children who may be underfoot. Then, when you’re finally done, you have to figure out a way to dispose of gallons of greasy, smelly cooking oil. And that’s without even getting onto the health question.

So, I deep-fry things a few times a year; most consistently (and not coincidentally), things I watched my mother and grandmother deep-fry, like meatcakes and Christmas doughnuts, which don’t taste right made any other way and which I feel reasonably confident about managing. I have never, ever tried to fry French fries, the typical recipe for which sounds like everything I fear and loathe about deep-frying, except that you have to do it twice. When I make fries, we have oven fries.

Some time ago, however, I came across a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Cold Oil French Fries. Instead of the traditional method, which involves plunging the fries into (and extracting them from) hot oil twice in quick succession, this recipe has you put the fries into the pan with the cold oil, and then heat them all up together (translation: zero, rather than two, times plunging in hot oil!). Then you cook them over medium heat in the boiling oil until they are brown and crispy. Then you remove them, drain them on brown paper, salt them, and eat them.

Not only is this a much simpler method than the traditional one, it has only one nerve-wracking step, as opposed to four. And the fries are, as I discovered when I made them last night for the first time (and as the title above implies), kickass.

Cold Oil French Fries

adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

The Cook’s Illustrated recipe, as they are wont to do, has various precise specifications about types of potato and oil, peeling and cutting, temperature and so forth, all of which I ignored. The fries may have been more kickass had I paid attention, but their level of kickassedness was perfectly sufficient to make my day.
 

The salient points that I fixed on to ensure the success of the recipe are as follows:

1. Use a heavy, Dutch-oven-type cooking pot to keep the oil sufficiently hot. (I used my Le Creuset knockoff. Bonus cleanup points if you can use one that’s deep enough to minimize oil splattering everywhere.)

2. Make sure that your fries are completely submerged in the oil before starting.

Ingredients

6 small to medium potatoes (I don’t know what kind these are, as I bought them in a brown bag from the guy who grew them, and I forgot to ask. I generally prepare 2 potatoes per person I’m serving, unless they’re gigantic. (The potato, not the person.))

canola oil (or other neutrally-flavored oil, such as peanut; I emptied a 750-ml bottle (~3 cups) over the fries, and added a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat for flavor and good measure)

salt

Method

Scrub the potatoes, remove any sprouts, eyes, or other unsightly bits, and cut into batons about ½-inch (1 cm) thick. (Note that I did not peel my potatoes, but whether or not you do is up to you.)

Line a baking sheet with brown paper and set aside.

Place potatoes in cooking vessel of choice and cover with oil.

Put the pan over low-medium heat and cover pan with a splatter screen if you have one. Keep an eye on the pan as the oil heats, stirring the fries occasionally to make sure they’re not sticking.

When the oil starts to boil, stir the fries again and check the heat setting to make sure the boil is maintained consistently without a) dying off or b) overflowing and starting a fire. Continue stirring fries every few minutes as they cook; once they start boiling, they should take 15-20 minutes to fry. Once they are consistently a light-golden brown, they are done.

Turn off the heat. Once the oil settles down, use a slotted spoon or similar to scoop cooked fries out of the oil and onto the paper-lined baking tray.

Sprinkle with salt. Eat as soon as fries are cool enough to permit injury-free consumption.

Serves 2 adults and 1 child with what appear to be leftovers, until everyone goes back for seconds.

PS: Please report back on how much time elapses before you get a request to make these again. (I got asked at breakfast this morning.)

Summer Sundays

When we lived in England, we got into the habit of inviting people over for Sunday lunch. It’s a time-honored and universal tradition there, and is my first choice for hosting. There’s much more time for cooking on Sunday morning than there is on the average weeknight, and there’s much more time on Sunday afternoon for lingering over dessert and a cup of tea. If everything falls into place, you might even get some uninterrupted adult conversation while the assembled children a) wreak havoc or b) watch a video in another part of the house.

Maybe part of the reason Sunday lunch feels like such a natural option for me is that I grew up with it – except we called it Sunday dinner. Whatever the name, most Sunday middays found us gathered around the table, digging in to a traditional roast dinner; an unvarying rotation of roast beef, roast pork, roast chicken, or baked ham; all served with potatoes and peas, and followed by a homemade dessert.

The only time we didn’t follow this pattern was during summer vacation when, every Sunday after church, we would pack up the car with towels, buckets, sandwiches, the scotch cooler, and the eight of us, and head to the beach. My enduring memories of Sunday lunch in the summer are of ham sandwiches and carrot sticks in the car; peaches, chilly from the cooler, on the beach; and ice cream on the way home.

Maybe that’s why I still feel a bit flummoxed when I think about cooking a Sunday lunch in warm weather. My default Sunday lunch option is the typical roast dinner – large hunk of meat, roasted potatoes, starchy, filling dessert – that warms you up on a winter afternoon and leaves you ready to do little besides doze off on the couch. Unless you’re the hearty type that likes to go out for a brisk, chilly walk and work it off. (Full disclosure: I am not that type, despite DP’s best efforts these many years.)

As we enter our second summer in Australia with outdoor eating facilities at our disposal, I think I’ve hit upon a formula that works. I still base the menu around a large hunk of meat, because it’s easy and doesn’t have to be served piping hot. I replace the roast potatoes and vegetables with salads. And the dessert, instead of a crumble or a rich, heavy pudding, is something lighter and more seasonal – preferably a pavlova.

It still has that Sunday-lunch feel, and still provides opportunities to linger and chat – preferably outside, in the shade, on an afternoon that’s not so warm it’s uncomfortable, but warm enough that no one feels inclined to suggest a brisk walk.

Baked potato salad

I first got the idea of baking potatoes for salad from the fount of useful information and great ideas that is dinner with Julie; I find the texture and taste of salads made this way vastly preferable to the traditional boiled-potato method.

12 small to medium baking potatoes

~3 scallions/spring onions/shallots

2-3 Tbsp Greek yogurt

1 Tbsp mayonnaise

2-3 tsp Dijon mustard

salt

healthy sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Prepare the potatoes as you normally would for baking (ie wash, remove eyes, poke with a fork), then put in a hot oven (~200C/400F or thereabouts) until baked. (Time will vary, depending on size and oven, from 30 minutes to 2 hours; I judge that my potatoes are ready when the skin feels papery and the potato feels soft when I squeeze it.)

Chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces while hot, and place in a large bowl. Finely chop the scallions into the bowl, then add the yogurt, mayonnaise, and mustard. Gently mix until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Season with salt and cayenne and mix again, tasting to check seasoning.

Serves 4 adults and 4 children, with a moderate amount of leftovers.

Gratin dauphinois

This is a dish that has frustrated me for years; I love it, but I never seemed to get consistent results when I made it. One time it would be cooked to perfection; the next time the potatoes would be cooked inconsistently, or the sauce would be too thin and sloppy, or some other disappointing variation. (And the latter seemed to happen much more often than the former. Even though I thought I was doing the exact same thing every time.)

Then, a few years ago, I came across a book called Don't Sweat the Aubergine: What Works in the Kitchen and Why, which actually explains what happens when you follow the steps of a recipe. In the section on gratin dauphinois, I found the following sentence: "It is impossible to give a recipe that you can guarantee will work every time." (What a relief to know it wasn't just my ineptitude!) The author, Nicholas Clee, then goes on to enumerate the many variables that can affect how the recipe works, including size and composition of the cooking vessel, absorption of the potatoes, etc. He also suggests - revolutionarily, for me - that you should heat all the ingredients on the stovetop before putting the gratin in the oven. He proposes using a saucepan to start, and then tipping the heated ingredients into a casserole dish to go in the oven, but when I revisited this recipe recently, I decided that this made unnecessary work and washing up, plus made the final presentation somewhat sloppy. Therefore I called one of my beloved cast iron skillets into service to do double duty. I've made gratin using this method twice in recent weeks, versus once using the cold-into-the-casserole-and-the-oven method, and the skillet/heating method wins hands down. Try it for yourself.

Gratin dauphinois
Adapted slightly from Don't Sweat the Aubergine by Nicholas Clee
This is a great dish to make when you're having company for dinner, as all the prep is done well ahead of time and then the potatoes can bake away quietly in the oven while you get on with other things. Plus anything made with this much cream is probably better shared with a group.

1 medium-sized potato per adult being served
butter
1 clove garlic, minced
salt 
1 cup/8 oz/240 ml full cream*
.5 cup/4 oz/120 ml milk*

Heat the oven to 325F/160C. Slice the potatoes thinly ("no thicker than a pound coin" - about .25-inch thick, or .5-cm; I use a mandoline for this) into a bowl of cold, salted water. They can be held like this for a bit if you have other things to do before assembly.

When ready to assemble the gratin, grease the inside of the skillet lightly with butter. Drain the potatoes and arrange in the skillet in layers, sprinkling strategically with salt and bits of garlic. Continue until you have used up all the potatoes.

Mix together the milk and cream in a small jug or measuring cup and pour over the potatoes, until the liquid is level with the top layer. If necessary, add more milk to ensure that this happens.

Place the skillet on the stovetop over medium heat and leave until liquid is bubbling around the edges and you can feel warmth coming from the potatoes when you hold your hand above the skillet. (I usually put a lid on the skillet to help this process along.)

When the gratin is heated through, remove the lid (if using) and place the skillet in the oven uncovered. Leave to cook for 1 - 1.5 hours, or until the surface has browned and the liquid has reduced and thickened.

In my experience, this holds together better and slices more neatly if you can let it sit for about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven.

Serve directly from the skillet.


* These amounts should provide enough liquid to cover about 4 potatoes' worth of slices, insofar as it's possible to predict with this recipe.

Moving on

When I break away from the food as the primary topic of this blog, which I do from time to time (see below), it usually presents two dilemmas: 1) recognizing appropriate occasions for doing so and 2) figuring out how to transition back to focusing on food. I mean, one day I’m musing on the fragile and transitory nature of life, and a few days later I’m burbling on about, say, baked potatoes with no reference to what went before? Kind of jarring and not very credible, no?

Square two

If you’ve been following along here the last couple of months, you’ve probably gathered that we’ve been trying to buy a house.

One house in particular, in fact. Since before we got here. We found it on the internet before we left Australia, and went to see it five days after we arrived. Then we spent the next nearly three months dealing with banks (six of them, if you count trying to get the mortgage and trying to get all our funds into one place), organizing inspections, negotiating, and faxing enough documents hither and yon to deforest a small state park. It was that cliché: a roller coaster of emotions: non-stop and, at times, nauseating. My father-in-law, who works in finance, consoled me more than once with the maxim that “Every deal dies a thousand deaths.”

Pushing boundaries

A long way from home—Kennebec (Maine)
potatoes at the Canberra Farmers’ Market,
Autumn 2009

Top Five Ways to Tell that DP is Back in Canberra

5. House has clearly been vacuumed every time you return from even the briefest errand—like, say, going to the mailbox.
4. You immediately forget which week is “just garbage” and which week is “garbage + recycling.”
3. No dirty dishes in the sink. Ever.
2. You’re up on what’s happening in the world again after six weeks of getting random current events updates off the internet.
1. Potatoes for dinner.