Artichokes Cooked in a Lemon and Wine Broth

Thank goodness for impulse purchases. Heading into the grocery store this past weekend, I had no idea I would be buying artichokes. My mind was more focused on the cheese counter, but the pyramid of the purple leafed vegetables had a siren call I could not ignore – and more importantly, they were on sale. Once the artichokes were back in my apartment, though, I had to contemplate how to cook them. I had made boiled artichokes many times before, but had never really been satisfied. While the artichokes would come out tender, the leaves often seemed bland and best used as transporters for lemon butter or aioli.

In one of my many cookbooks, I found a recipe for a savory broth of peppercorns, bay leaves, garlic, onion, lemon and wine. At first, I struggled to get my artichokes to lie facedown in the broth and I finally resorted to using my fondue pot as a weight to immerse them fully in the broth. I’m sure some day, an enterprising soul will invent the artichoke weight - until then my fondue pot will serve as a workable multi-tasker.

Then, I set about making aioli. My previous attempts at making aioli had been failures, but I had been using a food processor. This time I figured the whisk and arm strength method would probably be my best bet. On this occasion, the aioli came together easily – the only problem, however, was that the garlic I had used was a bit green and I thus found the aioli to be bitter. Next time I’ll use roasted garlic – that should ensure an aioli with a much more mellow flavor. But for this attempt, well let’s just say I was lucky that lemon butter was so easy to make.

The artichokes came out tender and flavorful – and the heart of the artichoke was spectacular. Its texture was crisp, yet soft and smooth at the same time. All in all it was a nice, relatively light (so long as you went easy on the lemon butter) vegetable meal for a late spring evening.

Artichokes Cooked in a Lemon & Wine Broth

Adapted from Big Small Plates by Cindy Pawlcyn

2 Large Artichokes

Poaching Liquid

2 quarts water

The juice and zest of a lemon (nothing fancy with the zest – I just used a vegetable peeler)

1 small onion – chopped

1 bay leave

5 peppercorns

3 cloves of garlic

3 coriander seeds (I didn’t have these so I left them out)

2 tablespoons of salt

1 cup of white wine

Lemon butter

3-4 tablespoons of melted butter

The juice of half a lemon

Cut off the top inch of each artichoke and cut the stems off the bottoms. (Note - the stems of an artichoke are very good as well – just peel them with a vegetable peeler and poach in the same liquid) Put all the poaching ingredients in a large pot and bring to boil. Add the artichokes face down (you may need to place a weight on top of them to keep them in this position), bring the water back to a boil then immediately reduce to a simmer. Cook the artichokes until they are tender at the heart – 30-45 minutes – a sharp knife will easily slide into the base of the artichoke when they are done. Remove from the water and drain. Serve with lemon butter or aioli.

**Note on eating artichokes: if you’ve never eaten a whole artichoke before, they can be a bit daunting. The outer leaves are tough and you scrape the leaves over your teeth discarding the inedible parts. As you get closer to the heart, each leaf will be more tender and more of the leaf will break off in your mouth when you eat it. When you reach the fuzzy choke, don’t be tempted to eat this – use a knife to gently remove the inedible fuzz. What remains will be the heart. This is arguably the best and most tender part of the artichoke and you can eat it all.

 

Popovers With Lemon

 

Some people love chocolate, but I love lemon.  It is, without question, my favorite flavor.  As I peruse cookbooks, recipes, magazines any mention of lemons, lemon juice, lemon zest pique my interest.  It’s that tart zing that it lends to everything that I love the most.  The flavor is fresh and bright.  To winter braises it adds a touch of summertime and with just a squeeze it can wake up a bland dish.

 

In the April 30th LA Times a recipe for popovers with lemon could not be resisted.  The article recommended them for breakfast so I popped out of bed on Sunday morning to whip up a batch.

 

                

 

A note on equipment: When we moved to Charlotte, I couldn’t bring myself to pack my popover pan for storage despite having used it only once three years prior.  What seemed like a waste of space at the time was now a must have.  I checked several sources and all of them noted the importance of using a true popover pan when making popovers.  The cups in a popover pan are deeper and narrower than the average muffin tin.  Rather than forcing the popovers to expand wider, the popover pan’s narrow cups force the batter to rise, resulting in the fluffy crowns you expect from true popovers. 

 

The popovers were very good albeit slightly dense for my taste.  Where I was expecting light and fluffy I got heavy and doughy.  I’m not sure if this is my blame or the fault of the recipe.  Or, perhaps popovers are meant to be a bit heavy (I’ve only had them at home when I’ve made them).  The flavor, however, was light and the lemon was subtle perfection.  I was somewhat skeptical of the parmesan cheese topping, but it turned out to be the best part of the popover.  The parmesan lends a salty crunch to an otherwise mild popover. 

 

Wondering where I might have gone wrong, I researched popover recipes in my other cookbooks.  Several noted that the popover batter should be mixed only until the ingredients are combined (as with most baked goods, it is important not to overwork the flour).  The LA Times recipe says to mix for 1 to 2 minutes.  Other recipes even suggest ignoring lumps.  I whisked until all of the lumps were gone (a couple of minutes).  In hindsight, I should have mixed the batter far less.  Something tells me that allowing the batter to rest for 30 minutes (as with pancake batter) would improve the texture of the popover.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

To be sure, the popovers were beautiful.  They puffed up much larger than I anticipated, and they baked to a beautiful golden brown.  If you have children, be sure to let them peak through the oven window to watch the popovers pop.  They also fill the house with the soft, citrus scent of lemon.  Who wouldn’t love that on a summer Sunday morning? 

 

Popovers with Lemon

LA Times, April 30, 2008

Total time:

50 minutes
Note: This recipe calls for popover pans.

4 tablespoons melted butter, divided

2 cups milk

6 eggs
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 tablespoons finely grated Grano Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional) 

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Spray the cups of two popover pans with nonstick cooking spray, then drizzle 1 tablespoon melted butter evenly among the 12 cups; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, zest and remaining 3 tablespoons butter until combined.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and whisk thoroughly until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.

4. Divide the batter among the cups in popover pans, then sprinkle the cheese evenly over the batter.

5. Put the pans in the center of the oven and bake, without opening the oven, for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 325 degrees and continue to bake until dark golden brown and crisp, about 15 minutes more.

6. Remove the popovers from the oven and immediately poke each with a thin metal skewer, cake tester or the tip of a paring knife to allow steam to escape. Turn the popovers out of the pan and dust with powdered sugar, if you like. Serve immediately, or reheat later in a 350-degree oven until just crisp.

Each popover: 174 calories; 7 grams protein; 18 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 121 mg. cholesterol; 154 mg. sodium.

 

 

 

 

Pear and Ginger Muffins

There is nothing worse than a tasteless muffin. I’m not quite sure why – perhaps it’s because the smell of the muffins cooking (regardless of how they taste) – induces Pavlovian drooling. With me, this conditioned response is so strong that I can barely wait till they’ve left the oven before I tear a muffin in half and slather it in butter. I think the other reason a tasteless muffin is so ghastly is that it’s actually quite easy to make a flavorful muffin, if only by adding a little spice. This is why I should have known better before trying Nigella Lawson’s Pear and Ginger Muffins from her latest cookbook Nigella Express. There was only one spice listed – the titular ginger – and very little else of flavor.

The first inkling I had that these would not be glorious muffins came as I was spooning the batter into the mini-muffin tins. I realized I had not added any salt to the recipe. At first, I thought I must have forgotten this step, but as I re-read the recipe I realized that it wasn’t called for. Now the necessity for just a bit of salt in baked goods was just about the first thing I learned about baking. You don’t add salt for a salty flavor – you do so to enhance the other flavors in the baked good - and this muffin definitely could have benefited from more flavor—or as Nigella might say, more flavour.

But not the flavor of ginger. If it is possible for a muffin to be both tasteless and overwhelmingly gingery, this muffin achieved it. A full teaspoon of ginger was excessive for this muffin – it overwhelmed any hint of pear or honey flavor. Cutting the ginger in half (at least) and adding in some cinnamon or nutmeg would have helped this muffin immeasurably. I suppose you could then argue that the muffin would essentially be the pear equivalent of an apple spice muffin – but apple spice muffins taste good. This muffin did not. And I like pears!

I suppose that this recipe failure could all be my fault - if so please prove me wrong. The recipe is copied below – just take my advice and add in the salt. Also, add in the cinnamon, nutmeg, or even allspice and use some restraint with the ginger – and let me know if you have more success with the recipe with these modifications. Because believe me – you don’t want a tasteless muffin.

From Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

1¾ cups flour
¾ cup sugar
½ cup (packed) plus 6 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup sour cream
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey
2 eggs
1½ cups peeled and chopped pears (about ¼-inch).

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin papers.

2. Measure into a bowl the flour, granulated sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, baking powder and ground ginger.

3. In a large measuring cup, whisk the sour cream, oil, honey and eggs and then fold this into the dry ingredients.

4. Lastly, mix in the pear dice and then divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

5. Sprinkle each one with ½ teaspoon brown sugar and then bake for 20 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack. Best eaten still a little warm.

Makes 12 (full size) 36 (mini-muffins)

 

Lighter Chicken Parmesan

As you can tell from this blog, I really love food and so does my “friend,” aka the extra 20 pounds of baby weight that lingers around my middle section. I know, I still have it almost two years later and should call it what it really is, fat, but I gained it while pregnant, so that is what I am going to call it. I recently restarted Weight Watchers, which has always worked well for me in the past to get me into a healthy eating mindset. This time though, I successfully convinced H to join in the venture. So I am going to try to post at least once a week on something for dinner that is “points” friendly.

This week it’s Chicken Parmesan from the Cooks Illustrated Light Recipes Issue.  I was a little skeptical of a couple of things namely

a) Can something that is supposed to be fried taste as good baked?

b) (probably the most important of the two) Is there a way for it to include an adequate amount of cheese.

I should not be surprised, but the chefs at Cooks Illustrated managed to accomplish both.  The chicken was crisp and tender, but also cheesy without being slathered in a gratuitous amount of cheese.

The key was pre-toasting the Panko, the light as air Japanese style bread crumbs.  Brillant!  The chicken not only looked fried, it also had a nice crisp crust.  Because really soggy crust would just make you feel like you were missing out.  And let’s face it, I want to lose weight, but I refused to eat something that tastes anything like wet cardboard.

 

 The best part of this recipe was that the extra 4 pieces were still crisp when we ate lunch and dinner leftovers 2 and 4 days later.  Next time, I will try the reduced-fat mozarella recommended in the recipe and pound the chicken a little thinner and possibly cut them in half.  H loved it and JC tried a couple bites (without the sauce).

Lighter Chicken Parmesan  
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated Light Recipes Spring 2008      by Julia Collin Davison
6 servings           Approxmiately 7 points

Tomato Sauce
1 28 oz can of Diced Tomatoes
4 minced Garlic Cloves
1 Tbs Tomato Paste
1 tsp Olive Oil
1/4 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes (I increased the amount because I wanted more of a kick)
1 Tbs minced Basil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Chicken
1 1/2 c Panko
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1 oz Grated Parmesan
1/2 c Flour
1 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper
3 Large Egg Whites
1 Tbs Water
3 Large Boneless skinless Chicken Breasts, trimmed of excess fat and sliced into 6 servings
1 1/2 oz shredded Parmesan (we swapped for the 3 oz reduced-fat mozarella )
1 Tbs minced Basil

1. Cook garlic, tomato paste, oil and red pepper flakes in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the paste begins to brown. Pour in tomatoes and cook until thickened. Turn off heat and add the basil and salt and pepper.

2. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

3. Toast the breadcrumbs and oil in a a 12-inch skillet over medium heat until golden. Spread the bread crumbs in a shallow bowl and allow to cool, then stir in Parmesan.

4. In a second dish , combine flour, garlic powder, 1 Tbs salt, and 1/2 tsp of pepper.  In a third dish, whick together egg whites and water.

5. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top.  (The rack is imperative if you want the bottom of the chicken to be crispy.)  Pat chicken dry then season with salt and pepper.  Dredge the chicken the flour mixture (shaking off the excess), then egg whites, then coat with bread crumbs.  Lay chicken on the rack.  Repeat with each piece.

6. Quickly spray tops of the chicken with cooking spray, we used canola oil spray.  Bake until the meat is no longer pink and then center feels firm, about 15 minutes

7. Remove the tray from the oven.  Spoon 2 Tbs of the tomato sauce then a 1/4 oz of shredded parmesan to the top of the chicken and return to the oven until the cheese has melted, about 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with basil and serve.

Cheers!!