Archive for December, 2009
Pear Caramel Ice Cream
I know it’s not exactly ice cream season any more, at least not here in Philadelphia. Unfortunately this is yet another recipe that slipped to the bottom of the drafts pool and just now is resurfacing since the weather is cold enough to keep me inside and at my computer with greater frequency. To make up for the untimely fashion in which I’m getting around to posting this decadent Pear Caramel Ice Cream, I’ll throw in another cookbook review with today’s recipe.
Falling Cloudberries, written by globetrotting Tessa Kiros, stopped me in my tracks when I saw its beautiful tapestry cover and the striking photos of both the food and places of Tessa’s travels inside its pages. I was thrilled to have a such a lovely book to have tucked on my bedside table to read a little bit each night. Tessa has written the book in a style that melds memoir with making delicious dishes out of local ingredients. Perfect, right?
Well, while the book is a real stunner and the stories within its pages heartfelt and poetic, I always judge a cookbook not by its cover, but by the recipes in its collection that I test. I have to be blunt: the recipes in Falling Cloudberries are not really worthy of the price on the dust jacket. While I love the cultural context in which Tessa chose her recipes, the reality is that the ingredients in many of them are quite hard to find and I couldn’t really think of any substitutes to try for the ones that did get me itching to make them. In the end, I tried the recipe for her potato salad and for this ice cream. The potato salad was such a disappointment I’m not even going to post that one. The original recipe from the book’s pages for this Pear Caramel Ice Cream was also a huge disappointment with the first batch I made, mostly because the caramel process Tessa presents is, in my humble opinion, misguided and resulted in a grainy consistency and not very sweet flavor.
I decided to make a second batch using my own caramel technique and, lo and behold, the flavor of this ice cream proved to be outstanding! The pear is soft and smoky from being steeped in the hot caramel and the caramel itself adds an unmistakable yet subtle golden richness to the cream while also adding a little chewy texture and a punch of flavor when drizzled in at the end of the churning to create little veins of gold in each scoop.
So with the right tweaking, I’m sure there are several recipes worth a look between the gorgeous covers of Falling Cloudberries. But you must be an adventurous cook willing to make the effort in order to use this book for its recipes. That being said, if you enjoy food more in spirit than in process, as many a foodie does, this is a book well worth having for its graceful storytelling and poignant photography. It would make a wonderful gift here at the holidays for the foodie traveler on your list or as a luxury purchase for yourself. Falling Cloudberries may not be a workhorse in the kitchen, but it certainly is a worthy piece of eye candy in the world of culinary reads.
From the Archives: Pumpkin Pie Truffles
I recently made another batch of these Pumpkn Pie Truffles for a holiday event and was reminded by all the “ohmygosh” comments that this is a recipe worth revisiting, especially around the holidays when homemade edible gifts are very handy to have for those sometimes tough-to-buy-for coworkers, neighbors, and hostesses. Below is the recipe, but if you’d like to read more about how it was developed, stop on over at the original post in the archives.
PUMPKIN PIE TRUFFLES
A Straight from the Farm Original
5 c. white chocolate
1/3 c. fresh pumpkin puree
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 T. brandy or cognac
1 vanilla bean
3 t. cinnamon
1 t. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1/2 c. gingersnap crumbs
4 oz. dark chocolate
In a double boiler or large heavy saucepan, warm the condensed milk over low heat. Add the vanilla bean and allow to steep for a minute or two. Add the white chocolate and stir until it is melted and smooth. Add pumpkin and brandy/cognac and stir to combine. Stir in the remaining spices and remove from heat.
Chill mixture uncovered for an hour or until it sets up and rolls easily into 1 inch balls using your hands, placing truffles on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Place half of the truffles in the freezer while you coat the other half. Combine the graham cracker and gingersnap crumbs together and roll half the truffles in the crumbs (the crumbs should adhere to the sticky surface you created when you rolled the truffles in your hands).
Melt the dark chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave using 30 second intervals until smooth. Pull the uncoated truffles out of the freezer and use a fork to roll them in the dark chocolate until evenly coated. Place back on the wax paper/tray to harden.
Store all truffles in an air tight container in the fridge. Package in a nice box and present as a gift to your holiday party hosts or coworkers.
(makes 50-60 truffles)
Quince Jam
Tonight I’m watching the first snow of the year flutter in damp fat flakes past the street lamp outside my front window. Oh, hey, look! It’s snowing on the blog here too. Fun, huh? Winter is finally at our doorstep. Seasonal local eating will become a bit of a challenge over the next five months. But that’s where the beauty of putting up jars of this and that and stockpiling root vegetables and winter squash comes in.
One bunch of jars I put up in my cupboard earlier this autumn was of beautiful golden Quince Jam. This project, my first time working with quince, was a very special one for me. Just as with the Pickled Pears last year, mastering quince jam was something I wanted to do for my grandmother. The mere mention of quince brings this amazing sparkle to my 90 year old grandmother’s eyes. She remembers eating it as a child when aged quince trees were still commonly found in the backyards of most farmhouses.
Quince trees are no longer all that common, at least not where I live. In fact, I had never laid eyes on a quince until last autumn when I saw some while working at Longwood Gardens. At that time, I wasn’t smart enough to realize I had the perfect opportunity right before me to make a very special gift for my grandmother. Of course, this autumn, when the quince ripened and became fragrant (though they stay rock hard even when ripe) in October, I made sure to grab a bag and go harvest a bunch from that very same tree.
Now, a quick technical discussion on quince might be helpful. There are actually two different main categories of quince out there: the kind grown for its fruit crop (Cydonia oblonga) and the kind grown for its breathtaking flowers in the very early spring (Chaenomeles speciosa). The flowers of the former one are so-so and the fruit of the latter is, well, so-so, as I discovered. Don’t get me wrong, I’d pick the Chaenomeles (flowering quince) over the Cydonia any day because the fruit is still very tasty, just more of a pain to work with since it’s much smaller and not as prolific as the quince bred for eating. With the flowering quince, you get both a beautiful ornamental plant and a delicious edible harvest. For this recipe, I used the Chaenomeles, but most quince recipes are calling for the Cydonia so be aware of that if the recipe you are using calls for a certain number of quince…Cydonia fruit is much larger than Chaenomeles fruit.
Back to the fun stuff. This jam is really unique and I now understand why my grandmother giggles at the memory of it. The quince has an unmistakable texture – a crunch even after extensive stewing – and a very bright tingly flavor that is unlike any other fruit I’ve tasted. By the way, you really shouldn’t eat quince raw. You might break a tooth for starters and the flavor of a raw quince is apparently very astringent. I absolutely fell in love with having this jam over a warm slice of multi-grain toast. Unlike most jams, this one isn’t overly sweet and that, coupled with the chunky texture, makes it feel like something of substance rather than just another sugary breakfast spread.
I really can’t wait to give a large jar of Quince Jam to my grandmother for Christmas later this month and watch the sparkle spring up in her eyes. We’ll have thick slices of toast and jam together and laugh at all the grandkids running around with their freshly unwrapped toys. What food gifts are you giving for the holidays this year?
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