Chard Pancakes with Soft-Boiled Egg A "Food Revolution" for French Friday's with Dorie!

In addition to it being Friday someone somewhere has also declared today "Food Revolution Day". I thought calling it "Friday" was good enough really as Friday's have always a cause for celebration in their own right. They don't need the extra help but this particular Friday supposedly is a day when the world will come together to sing Kumbaya while those of us who cook can teach those who don't about preparing and eating good food.

Food Revolution Day's official website goes on to explain that the day is "a chance for people to come together within their homes, schools, workplaces and communities to cook and share their kitchen skills, food knowledge and resources." When I first heard about it through the Dorista tom-tom I thought "damn, does Jamie Oliver know about this?" Well it turns out he did. He's the guy in charge. So we can blame him for messing with Fridays.

To commemorate this annual food awareness holiday (which this year must share the day with National Cherry Cobbler Day) my fellow Doristas and I are celebrating by doing exactly what we were going to do anyway: prepare good food and then tell you about how we made it.

I'm sure the Dorista turnout for Food Revolution Day will be high seeing as there is no better way to to get 100% compliance than to not require anything special of the celebrants.


Every other Friday we take the time to carefully consider our menu, ask questions of each other, and then cook our selections in unison. For Food Revolution Day we are just going to cook whatever the hell we want. This suggests that the Doristas prefer to take Food Revolution Day to its extreme and treat it more like Food Anarchy Day.

I chose to celebrate Food Anarchy, um, Food Revolution Day by cooking up a batch of the Chard Pancakes I had missed from a few weeks ago. I'm a big fan of chard and I'm a big fan of pancakes so I was fairly certain this combination would set off the fireworks to celebrate a revolution. Around a real French table these would be called farçous - pancakes loaded with greens and they are typically served as either an appetizer or main course.

My verdict? Meh.

I found their taste to not be very revolutionary at all. Kind of plain. Even with lots of good butter and salt I just couldn't get too excited. Chard pancakes weren't going to be fomenting revolutions in my kitchen. Dear Husband certainly didn't rush to pickup arms and start fighting. Nope, the established Dinner Specials would maintain their positions of dinner-power.

Dorie's recipe made quite a few pancakes and just because The Chard Pancake Revolution failed to materialize I wasn't going to waste them. I was tempted to give them a toss but I've had enough meals at my sister's house to know that food doesn't always have to taste good. Wasting them wouldn't be sending a good message to our revolutionaries would it?

So instead I got creative and the next morning I put a soft-boiled egg on a few of them, served 'em with a big glass of champagne and called the whole mess "brunch". Then it hit me: when you put a soft boiled egg on something, anything, you are committing something of a revolutionary act. A Food Revolutionary act but still a revolutionary act nonetheless. They were quite good this way. They were chic even.

Or maybe it was just  the champagne but I never underestimate the revolutionary power of a runny, soft-boiled egg. Putting an egg on food changes it suddenly and quite often radically. Isn't that what a revolution is?

Dump a runny egg on something, anything, and whatever you had been conditioned to think about it previously must now be thought of in a completely different manner forever more. Appetizers and dinner become breakfasts or brunches.  Sides become whole meals.

Eaten for breakfast with toast soldiers, scooped out onto a few stalks of roasted asparagus, topping hamburger, or dumped onto a salad (or peeled and squashed onto some chard pancakes) a runny egg is magic. It transforms the ordinary into something else entirely.

You can get this magic with a poached egg or a fried egg as well but I rarely use those methods because making soft boiled eggs is so much easier and this steaming method first taught to me by my Nana makes a perfect egg every time. 

Chard Pancakes 
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" 

• Recipe can be found here. 

Soft-Boiled Eggs
Serves as many as you want. Method legitimized by Cook's Illustrated.

1. Fill a saucepan large enough to hold your eggs with 1/2 inch of water. No more! 
2. Bring the water to a boil. With only 1/2 inch of water this should take no time at all. 
3. Place your eggs in the pot, lower the temperature to medium, and cover. 
4. Set your timer for 6 minutes
5. When timer goes off, quickly remove the cover and put the pot under running cold water. Let cold water run into the pot for 30 seconds until cool to the touch. If your water doesn't run cold you can do what I do and toss a few ice cubes in the pot to help out
6. After 30 seconds remove the eggs. They are actually still warm and tasty inside. 

Feel free to adjust the 6 minute time to your preferred level of done-ness. For me 6 minutes produces an egg where the white is cooked solid and the yolk remains runny.

You might have to make a slight adjustment depending on the size of your eggs or whether your refrigerator is colder or not but once you get your number you won't have to change it whether you are cooking two eggs or eight.

This dish was an assignments for French Friday's with Dorie, a cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan's culinary tome "Around My French Table". We generally avoid including the recipes in our posts. However, wherever there has been a significant adaptation by me or where the recipe has already been publicly posted by Ms. Greenspan or her publishers or hundreds of other bloggers I will either include it here (only when adapted) or provide a direct link. Please feel free to contact me via the link provided on my page if you need any assistance finding a French Friday with Dorie Recipe.

Coupétade Haiku French Friday's with Dorie

Baked up like breakfast

Dorie says it is dessert

Editor mistake?

Why should I argue?

So what if it can be both?

(I'll vote for breakfast.)

So is this dish French?

It does have their toast in it.

the French know their toast! 

Coupétade

(Full recipe from "Around My French Table" can be found here.)

Its one of those things that was good but now that I know what it is all about I'd do it all differently. Like high school. This recipe (which can be found at this link) seemed good on paper if not terribly special. I figured it would be a good enough place to start seeing as I had no experience with any baked french toast dishes before.  (Despite this recipe being found in the dessert section I never once considered it that.  I resisted any experimentation (orange zest? a splash of cognac? something?) opting instead to play it straight.  (I used apricots, cherries, and a throw of pistachios.)

I've made plenty of bread puddings but the extra step of cooking the challah into french toast before baking changed it up unexpectedly so the tops of the slices cooked a lot differently than I had expected. (I used the same sesame loaf challah from the local bakery that was the perfect base for my Stuff on Toast last week. Well not the same loaf but one exactly like it.) I overlapped the slices in the dish for no other reason that I wanted to use it all. The exposed parts of the slices were a bit darker, more chewy, and probably a lot more carmel-y than coupétades are supposed to be -- but it tasted quite good anyway.

It tasted like breakfast.

A Real Agave Margarita

In case it escaped your notice last Saturday was Kentucky Derby Day, the day where bourbon reigns supreme. You would think I would be up on any sport that celebrates bourbon more than I do but know precious little about the Derby other than I heard the whole thing was over in 2 minutes 2.89 seconds this year and most spectators were drunk. I had every intention of getting drunk as well while posting a requisite Mint Julep recipe -- but realized that I would rather clean the garage instead.

I suppose I just have too much to do and getting drunk for a 2 minute event didn't fit into my plans.

Besides, the Internet doesn't need another mint julep recipe and who drinks a mint julep anywhere other than at Derby party?

"Great to see you Tom, Helen...come in. Hey, can I get the two of you something to drink?" 

"Oh, I'll just have a have a beer Bill, and you know Helen, she'd just love a mint julep!"

Nobody really does that do they? So lets move on to something more practical, shall we?

The day after Derby Day was Cinco de Mayo, a day when all across this great land of ours people celebrate a Mexican holiday that they have absolutely no idea what it is about. Here is a hint: it's not about cheap nachos and beer specials. And in case you are that lady I overheard at the supermarket it is not "the Mexican July Fourth". They have another day for that -- and what does that mean anyway?

Here in Southern California, where we live on what used to be Mexican land, we use the day to celebrate Mexican heritage, culture, and pride...and cheap nachos and beer. But if you prefer to celebrate it with a cocktail it should only be a margarita. Most origin stories have the drink invented just over the border at either Ensenada's Hussong's or at the Rancho La Gloria Hotel in Rosarito. Some Texans will also try to lay a claim to inventing it but then Texans try to lay claim to everything -- so there is always that to consider.

The very best margarita, however, is the one being offered to me because proximity must count for something. I will generally accept it even though I know I will have to lie and tell you that your radioactive colored, cloyingly sweet concoction tastes "fantastic". While I am saying it I will be scanning the room for fresh limes and plotting to pour an extra shot of tequila in it while nobody is looking.

Because I'm a giver I thought I would finish out this post with a list of thoughts and suggestions in case one day you find yourself making a margarita for me. You are free to enjoy them any way you prefer and I certainly won't stop you. (I only care care about the ones I have to drink anyways.)

• Please do not blend my margarita. If blended margaritas are something you insist on inflicting on the world please refer to them by their proper name and offer me what is called a "frozen margarita". This will spare you from witnessing my disappointed face while you hand me a snow cone when I was expecting an actual cocktail. Refer to it correctly I can either politely decline or accept and initiate a plan to spike my drink with more tequila later. Like 30 seconds later when my drink is a watered down mess.
• I understand that frozen drinks can have a certain celebratory quality about them, especially in summer time, so if you have your heart set on serving a frozen margarita consider doing what our dear friend does and freeze the margarita-lime mixture in an ice cube tray so you can blend those (with a little ice) into your tequila. I know. Genius, right? 
• Using a mix is completely unnecessary. You don't get to say that you "make the best margaritas" if all you do is add a mix to tequila. (The same goes for adding water to brownie mix by the way.) 
• Don't add fruit. I know they are called "Strawberry Margaritas" or "Mango Margaritas" and everyone oohs and aahs when you serve them but I consider them dessert, not cocktails. Also, since I'm not a college girl that you are trying to get drunk you should just skip serving me these.
• Abstain from adding Triple Sec or any other liqueurs. This is especially true if you use an already too-sweet mix. I know they are called "Cadillac" in some effort to make you feel posh for ordering them but this is just a ploy to coax you out of an extra $5 in exchange for 25 cents worth of liquor. What you get for your money is a cloying mess. 
• Salt or no salt? Always ask. Most people have a preference so don't assume everyone likes it the way you do. And for Pete's sake don't use table salt! After suffering a mouth full of metalic tasting table salt it is no wonder so many people think they prefer no salt margaritas. I like them both ways ('natch) and my preference depends on my mood and the local air temperature. (For some reason I crave a salted rim only when the weather is really, really warm.)

I know I'm am sounding picky here and perhaps I am. The truth of the matter is that the very best margarita is the one being offered to me so I am very unlikely to refuse it even if you haven't taken any of my suggestions.

I hope you will try to make a margarita sans mix if you haven't done so before. Before you know it you will be juicing margarita citrus in your $200 citrus press like we do.

"Buy a bottle of margarita mix and you will drink margaritas only until the bottle is empty. Teach a man to mix a margarita with fresh citrus and he will drink them for a lifetime."

Or at least until the limes run out ; which at our house that just never happens.

A Real Agave Margarita
(makes only one but you can make another one if you want.)

• 2,5 oz silver tequila (or to taste. I like tasting more!) 
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1.5 tablespoon water
• lime for garnish
• fluer de sel for rimming the glass (optional) 

In a mixing glass add all ingredients except the lime for garnish and the salt. If you are salting the glass drag a cut lime around the rim of the cocktail glass and dip the rim in a saucer filled with fluer de sel. Fill the glass with ice. Add cocktail mixture to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake until well chilled. About 30 seconds. Strain contents of shaker over the glass and garnish with slice of lime.

Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs (AKA "Stuff on Toast") French Friday's with Dorie

If I were going to write a cookbook entitled "Around My Childhood Table" filled with all the stuff I ate as a kid I would certainly include a dozen different versions of this dish. All of mom's versions, no matter the ingredients, were always referred to as "Stuff on Toast". Each night mom felt pressured to rustle up a decent dinner for us kids without time for serious menu planning her creativity and a loaf of bread would take over.

"Mom, what's for dinner?"
"I don't know. Probably Stuff on Toast."

Yay! This was certainly not a bad thing as far as we were concerned. She was as artful with her interpretations as Dorie Greenspan is here with hers. Mom would cream up whatever she had on hand, put it on toast and then call it dinner -- all much to our delight. Half a bag of frozen vegetables, leftover creamed spinach and a package of chipped beef or canned tuna -- even week-old hard boiled Easter eggs and a bag of peas would be transformed with the help of a small amount of cream and some seasonings. And toast, of course. 

Far from an appetizer, Stuff on Toast is a fancy breakfast, an elegant brunch, a smart lunch, or a week-night dinner. Its no real recipe, but it is everything. And gosh. Don't we know by now that with a runny egg on top it is at home at even the fanciest of French Tables? 

Serving Stuff on Toast on a crispy slice of challah with a dusting of fresh herbs certainly gives this lowbrow dinner concept a highbrow panache that my mother never really bothered with. But not by much. Who knew we were eating fancy French food way back when?

Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs (AKA "Stuff on Toast")
From Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table"

The Gold Rush Cocktail

This past weekend's warm weather forced a brief moment of anxiety upon me as I had to contemplate the impending close of "Bourbon Season". Saying 'goodbye' when I am not quite prepared is always awkward for me but eschewing bourbon for the season can be painful. When temperatures start to heat up I know I will eventually hit the seasonal "bourbon wall" (that point at which the qualities which make bourbon such a lovely fall and winter tipple prevent it from summer consideration). The unseasonable April heatwave caught me off guard.

I did not want to say goodbye. 

So I fought back! I went in search for a bourbon drink refreshing enough and capable of staving off what I call the Annual Great Gin Migration. (I switch to gin in the summertime.) At least for another few months or until the dead heat sets in and I actually start to crave my gin.

I found it in the Gold Rush.

There is a lot about this drink to love. Probably because I already loved it once. It is really just a Hot Toddy but served chilled cold. I didn't know you could do that to a toddy but you can! It is sweet (but not too sweet with my recipe), strong yet refreshing, and unmistakably bourbon. The inclusion of bourbon may keep it off most trendy summer cocktail menus but it shouldn't. A lot of end-of-bourbon-season angst could be avoided!

I'm presenting the recipe here as one that can be easily scaled up, premixed and then stored in a mason jar in your refrigerator for future consumption. The recipe makes two but save that extra one for yourself because you will certainly want it. If you'd rather, make the honey syrup in advance to knock these out one at a time and at whatever proportions suit your guest's fancy. Personally, I found it more refreshing to scale the honey down a bit and add the tiniest of seltzer "float' to the top -- your mileage may vary. With or without the seltzer this is a winner and the ingredient list guarantees this drink can always be at hand. Next time up I think I will try my hand at infusing lemon verbena or thyme into the honey syrup.

What gin?

The Gold Rush Cocktail
Makes 2 drinks

• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons very hot water
• 4 oz bourbon (1/2 cup)
• 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• seltzer water
• lemon for garnish

To an empty measuring glass or mason jar add the honey and hot water and stir until thoroughly mixed. Stir in the bourbon and lemon juice. Continue mixing until thoroughly blended. Serve immediately or p0ut the jar into the refrigerator until you need a refreshment that only bourbon can satisfy!  When ready add contents of jar to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake for 1 minute. Strain over a rocks glass filled with ice. Float 1-2 tablespoons of seltzer water on glass (optional) and garnish with lemon. Drink. Repeat.

Ispahan Loaf Cake French Friday's with Dorie

Things have not always been so rosy between me and foods flavored with rose. I couldn't stand them. Rose flavored foods became unavoidable for me however after I marrying into a rather large Persian family. One with a legendary Persian cook in the form of my mother-in-law. She with a menacing bottle of rose water in her household pantry. Rose became my destiny as I was called on to sample all manner of expertly prepared Persian dishes flavored deftly with rose; everything from rice, braised dishes, spiced nuts, creamy desserts and baked pastries -- even 'bastani" which is a favorite ice cream flavor.

As a Westerner I was amply familiar with rose oil, of course. The fragrant rose flower's oil has been used as a luxury scent in perfumes and cosmetics by all cultures since it first production in ancient Persia a millennia or so years ago. The byproduct of creating this oil is rose water. When you make the oil by distilling fresh rose petals you necessarily create a ton of rose water as a byproduct.

I gather the ancient Persians had to find some sort of use for it seeing as it was so abundant, right? Todayit is the staple food ingredient nearly synonymous with Persian culture.

To my sensibilities, however, it reminded me of my grandmother's powder room. Blech. I would sample it politely but never indulged it too much.

I wasn't going to make this cake named for the most famous of the Persian roses when it came up in the French Friday's with Dorie group rotation until I realized it would make a perfect dessert to take to one of my mother-in-laws storied feasts. If you can't beat them, join them. Right?

But while making it something remarkable happened: I realized I didn't hate it so much. I'm not saying I loved it, I just didn't hate it so much.  OK. Maybe I even kind of liked it. It intrigues me now. And now that I have a menacing bottle of rose syrup of my very own (and extract and rose water) I will feel I should work at finding new uses for it to share with expanded family.  Cocktails anyone?

The power of love indeed!

The recipe as written makes a cake that didn't really impart much rose taste despite the inclusion of both rose extract and rose syrup. Even skeptical taste buds like my own ached over its noticeable absence. Instead of feeling relief I found I was willingly looking for ways to amp up the flavor. I doubled the extract called for and when even that wasn't enough I adding a heavily flavored the glaze to get more flavoring on the cake.

This way, I figured, if you want a more subtle tasting morsel you could eat around the glaze but by including the glaze on your fork you could have a rosey mouthful to transport you back to Persia. The need for this leads me to believe that all rose flavorings are not created equal. When and if you make this please tread carefully and mix in the flavoring slowly until you get to your desired tolerance...I mean taste level. A small amount of rose will enhance the raspberries quite elegantly.

Too much extract and you will find yourself transported to my grandmother's powder room. Blech.

Ispahan Loaf Cake
adapted from Dorie Greenspan as she adapted it from Pierre Herme

• 4 tablespoons rose syrup. I used 1883 brand which is a bar syrup. I would not buy this again as its just as easy to use rose water and simple syrup.
• 2 tablespoons half and half
• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 cup confectioners sugar plus more if you wish to add the glaze
• 3 eggs separated plus 1 whole egg
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon rose extract or to taste
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 pint raspberries

Center a rack in an oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 x 5 loaf pan and dust with flour, tapping out the excess.  You know what to do here, right? Sure you do.

Get the dry ingredients ready. Sift the almond flour with the confectioners sugar and a pinch of salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Mix the rose syrup into the half and half and set aside. Set up your stand mixer with the whisk attachment and a large bowl and whip the egg whites until they start to set. Add the 3 tablespoons sugar and continue to whip until they get gloss and hold firm. Don't over beat!

In the stand mixer start the batter. Put the dry ingredients and the butter in the bowl with the paddle attachment and turn on medium speed, scraping as needed, until well creamed. About 3 minutes. and the egg yolks one at a time and after the preceding yolk has been incorporated.  Add the whole egg.  Add the rosey half and half and 1/2 the rose extract.

Sample the batter to test. Do you taste rose? If not, add a tiny bit more extract and beat for another minute. And so on until you can taste a subtle rose note somewhere short of your grandmother's powder room.

When you are ready, scrape 1/3 of the egg whites into the bowl and stir to lighten the batter and then fold in the rest of the egg whites in three additions alternating with 1/3 of the flour.  Use a rubber spatula until all is incorporated. Don't over fold! Its better to under fold than over fold.

To make the cake put 1/3 of the batter into the pan and smooth out. Dot the bottom with one half of the raspberries. Cover them carefully with a heavy 1/3 of the remaining batter. Dot with the last of the raspberries and then cover with the last of the batter.

Lower the oven temperature to 300 and slide the loaf pan in directly on the rack and bake for 60 minutes or until a knife can be inserted and removed cleanly without batter sticking to it.  This cake bakes slowly so don't worry if you need to bake longer. Make sure it is done and the top is a golden brown and gives a springy touch and pulls from the side of the pan.  Remove from oven and let fully cool on a rack.

To make the glaze put 1/2 cup confectioners or glazing sugar in a bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon of the rose extract and mix with a fork.  Add up to 1/2 tablespoon of cold water until the glaze comes together and mixes smooth.

When the cake is fully cool set on a wire rack over a baking pan and drizzle with a spoon to cover. Let set.  Enjoy!

It was all I could do not to throw rose petals around this photo shoot.

Browned Butter Bourbon Blondies

I forgot to include the chocolate chips in the post title up there so why not go for broke in the picture text? It's what we food bloggers are doing nowadays (to the irritation of some) and more is always better, right? suppose I should have called them "Browned Butter, Bourbon, and Chocolate Chip Blondies" but that seemed a bit like piling it on unnecessarily and besides, I wasn't feeling so good about adding in those chips anyway. Where are you supposed to draw the line with this add-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink trend anyway? (There is only so much real estate on these photos kids.)

What started their life as ordinary blondies were made extraordinary with the just an addition of the ever-popular browned butter tweak and a heavy splash of bourbon. Bourbon, it can't be said loud enough, makes everything taste better which is why you see a splash of it popping up in just about every good thing blogged this past year. I even saw it in splashed into salad dressing. Mm...  Lately, I've been finding that an extra splash of bourbon in my bourbon has been helping my attitude as I deal with garage contractors and insurance companies every day after work.

These blondies would have been sublimely perfect and certainly in no need of additions should I have stopped after adding the bourbon. Like every other food blogger I know, however, I couldn't resist the cheap temptation to add chocolate. Or something. Its what we food bloggers do. We add things. It would be a very boring food blog world out here if we didn't.  Believe me.  If we didn't add things we'd all still be blogging about the same buttermilk biscuits or brownies but because we add things you get cheddar, onion and jalepeno bacon biscuits or caramel brownie nutella marshmallow brownies.

Adding chocolate here felt somewhat like cheating though.  At least to me. Like shooting fish in a barrel. The easy way out. I wish I had either left them plain (with bourbon of course --which is now the new "plain") or had gotten a bit more in touch with my creative self. I have a cabinet full of coconut (regular, sweetened and toasted), dried cherries, candied orange peel, peanut butter and peanut butter chips, bananas, banana chips, and so on. I could have added any of these but no. I added chocolate chips. I'm a wuss.

I have always thought that the whole point of a blondie was that it was to be something of an "anti-brownie". The butterscotchy yang to the brownie's overplayed chocolate/cocoa yang. By rights, shouldn't that mean blondies should contain no chocolate at all? Ever? What was I doing upsetting the natural order of things and letting down my own creative self all at the same time? Shame on me.

But they were good. Great even. Damn.

Clearly I tossed in these chocolate chips on impulse because I knew they would get cheap, quick applause. And it worked. Almost too well. Chocolate chips took them so far over the edge I could not get any work done for a full hour after setting them out on the lunchroom table at the office.

"O.M.G. did you make those weird brownies in the lunch room?"

I laughed but tried to not be so obvious to the fact that I was laughing at her poorly structured thought -- which she actually uttered aloud in "Internetspeak". (I hope that doesn't become a thing as popular as browned butter or bourbon.)

"You so totally need to make these again!"

I will. But next time I'm adding bacon. So there.

Bourbon Browned Butter Blondies