033: Vote the Pain Away (The Teaches of Peaches)
This is the New Year and much like Ben Gibbard, we don't feel any different
(JS) A new year is upon us, sweet readers, and you know what that means: the goop detox is here! Real fans may recall my full review of the 2019 program, a five day elimination exercise designed to reset and rejuvenate curated by the aptly named Dr. Alejandro Junger (TL;DR: truly the worst excuse for granola I’ve ever encountered, but the cashew caesar kinda slaps). I will not be participating this time around, nor will I be altering my diet in the least. Much like Padma, I’m feeling pretty blah this week, with mealtime providing some much welcomed structure to this unbounded period of uncertainty, and I’m not about to compromise that for a little nightshade anxiety. Also like Padma, I’ve got a lot to be grateful for; besides the obvious (health, friends, fam, financial security), I recently acquired a pair of Subus from Marche Rue Dix and have found new inspiration to actually leave my apartment. It’s hard to succinctly sum up just how much I’m enjoying these, but consider this: if house shoes were the winners of pandemmy season one, these are house shoes: Full Throttle, teflon-coated, cushioned as a cloud, and poised to revive Demi Moore’s acting career. Or at least my will to move.
Foodwise we got just a lil’ fancy this week:
Kicked off New Year’s Eve with this fettuccine with crab, creme fraiche, and tarragon from Renee Erickson; we used mafalde as a subtle tribute to CMBYN’s unsung hero
Started 2021 with a bit of a sausage party: New Years day paella with merguez, chorizo, and shrimp, vaguely following this recipe from Florence Fabricant; the day after, a spin on this skillet-baked pasta using merguez, provolone, mozzarella, labne, and chives
In an extremely on brand move for both of us, David and I drove up to Hudson on Saturday; he was on the hunt for a vintage end table, whereas I was amped to sample the spread at Kitty’s Market Cafe (I especially enjoyed the chopped salad supreme).
(SB) Happy New Year, friends near and far! Based on a brief survey, it seems like we’re all feeling a little exhausted and anxious as we face the tasks we reassured ourselves we didn’t have to tackle until 2021, and frankly… who can blame us. This time around, celebrating NYE felt a little bit like a stinky res hit of trying to make the pandemic fun: good food and wine, served in a haze of mild desperation to keep hopelessness at bay. I’m personally still coughing (JS: big go girl give us nothing! energy).
Admittedly, I’ve also been floating around in a miasma particular to sustained periods of writing my dissertation. For those who are not similarly engaged, it feels a little bit like the crush to finish a term paper during finals week — except it never ends, and my body is older and more cantankerous. Despite that feeling, like Jake, I have plenty of blessings to count and cherish — many of you among them. Last night, I had a dream about finding a recipe for “cowboy salad dressing” in one of my sources, and woke up determined to share it with all of you. Alas, it was but a figment of my addled mind, but you might instead enjoy this piece friend of the letter Lexi shared with me as much as I did.
Willis has been the MVP of our household this week, making beautiful chicken cutlets and pasta salads for my zombie ass to stumble out to at the end of a day of writing. Here’s what I have managed to make:
We rang in the New Year with a big ol’ flat iron steak and duck fat potatoes and, as is customary, one too many martinis. We prepared the first a la Alison Roman’s break up steak, subbing cilantro for parsley.
After a lot of hand wringing and tab toggling, I settled on cooking the recipe featured in the Rancho Gordo Bean Club mailer for my black eyed peas (basically an adapted version of these). I didn’t have berbere, and that was a mistake; they were better the next day.
A lot of soup for lunch, including Smitten Kitchen’s cabbage & farro soup, which was indeed cozy (don’t skip the parm topping) and some simple soba soup.
GLD: Pâte á Choux
For our first ever collaboration, we teamed up with Courtney Kassel and Gaby Scelzo, the dynamic duo behind Sifted, an excellent newsletter full of exciting and unexpected recipes and a hefty helping of lols (and a commitment to overcoming Substack’s visual formatting limits in ways we could never imagine). In prime fuck your detox form, the gals offer an impassioned and informative introduction to what might be considered the gayest of lil’ pastries. We laughed; we cried; we yearned to cathartically stuff cream puffs in the company of our nearest and dearest. Thank you Court and Gab for this delicious submission; we look forward to a day when we can all gather round the Cabot can and raw dog it, free of viral anxieties.
(CK) Bonjour, hi. I lived in Quebec for five years and all I got was the knowledge of how to add accents on an iPhone keyboard, which quite frankly will be incredibly useful for the amount of times I’m about to type pâte á choux. I think Gab and I are pretty similar to choux pastry. Just like the eggy batter-slash-dough, we’re surprisingly a lot less complicated and finicky than we seem on paper. We’re simple, adaptable, vaguely sexual, actually kind of fun, and quite impressive when you really get to know us. And with that humble introduction out of the way, let’s get into it.
If you, like me, have been a Great British Bake Off obsessive since its PBS and Mary Berry days—really since it was GBBO and none of this Baking Show nonsense — you’re familiar with choux pastry. It’s the magical dough behind cream puffs, éclairs, croquembouche, and my all-time favorite technical challenge, religieuses. According to King Wikipedia, *Mel & Sue voice-over* these little buns were originally named popelins after women’s breasts during the reign of Catherine de Medici. (For the record, I’m pretty sure all European pastries are named after women’s breasts.) They’re now commonly known by their French name, choux, after little heads of cabbage, which is an absolutely adorable thing to resemble. Like all baking, it helps to understand the science behind why they work.
Similar to popovers, this dough is enriched with a high proportion of eggs and goes into a very hot oven which creates lots of steam and turns the little piped mounds into ballooned, hollow, crunchy perfection. Another extremely GBBO tip that actually works (no shade to Peter and his “listening” to cakes for doneness) is that when mixed, the batter should be uniform and hold a ‘v’ shape when you lift a glob of it on your spoon or spatula. If it’s too stiff and doesn’t fall at all, add a bit more beaten egg. If it’s too wet and falls in strands, some people say it’s doomed, but I say add a little more flour and pray to the pastry gods.
On New Year’s Eve, my boyfriend and I stayed at a family friend’s in the Berkshires — a family friend who does not cook. Choux was the ideal dessert choice for such a situation, since it actually requires very little equipment and few ingredients. I’m a Cancer moon, so it goes without saying I brought my favorite rubber and offset spatulas on our vacation, as well as piping bags, but a Ziploc could’ve done *in a pinch*. Despite my boyfriend's doubts and the fact that I started baking at about 9:30pm, we had cream puffs in time for the ball drop and they were delish. With a whisk-less kitchen, we had to forgo homemade fillings, so instead I alternated filling them with store-bought chocolate mousse and shoving the nozzle of some Cabot whipped cream directly into the choux. They were messy, equal parts trashy and classy, and the perfect encapsulation of NYE in a bite.
(GS) I also (successfully) attempted pâte á choux this weekend, and now all I have is tips, tips, and more tips. The only tip I don’t have is a pastry one, which is why once my buttery, sort of salty, sort of sweet dough was ready (I saw the ‘v’ shapes!), I used two spoons to make dollops for cream puffs and longer strips for eclairs. I do not own a piping bag and was out of Ziploc bags, but discovered the spooning method, which also requires using your fingers to perfect the shapes, is much more conducive to sneaking bites of batter.
If you’re a nervous baker (comme moi), do not give up on your choux and start crying when you watch the way it quickly transitions from glossy, yellow balls of batter into dense, spongey, pale puffs after just ten minutes in the oven (comme moi again). Trust that it will brown to the perfect golden shade and rise enough that it hollows out and cracks a bit on top the way perfect pâte á choux does.
It will also cool relatively fast, which is a wonderful thing for someone who constantly incinerates the roof of their mouth with scorching chocolate chips and recently had to pivot a cake to a trifle after trying to pop a layer out of the pan mere minutes after it came out of the oven. Once your puffs are truly room temp, you can go ahead and start filling those sweet, eggy babies with cream, custard, mousse, pudding—anything that can be described as luscious and fluffy. I opted for lightly salted and sweetened whipped cream, and finished them by dipping each pastry head first into a microwaved mug of chocolate chips, a fat pat of fancy salted butter, and later a small pour of whole milk, because while I already shared that I’m a nervous baker, I should also disclose I’m a self-imposed one, and absolutely love to measure nothing and, as Court would say, pray to the pastry gods.
This recipe, halved, is what we both followed for this G-est of LDs, but you can also find it in everyone’s new favorite cookbook, Dessert Person. Next up on our choux agenda is craquelin-covered everything, starting with this graham craquelin from @alexanderbakes.
TRASH TALK: THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE
(JS) A bright spot in last week’s compulsory doom scroll was happening upon a flash sale from Carla Finley, the baker behind Apt. 2 Bread. I’ve been preaching the virtues of her sourdough focaccia recipe to pretty much anyone who will listen, most recently serving a provolone studded version alongside my meaty Christmas dinner of bogracz stew. Thick-cut end slices from the beautifully bronzed sourdough half-boule I picked up in Clinton Hill turned out to be the perfect solution to perking up lunches of leftover stew on days three and four. Much to my chagrin, I left the middle section untouched in a paper bag on the top of my refrigerator for a couple days, distracted by the likes of aforementioned seafoods and sausage, and by the time I returned to my neglected loaf, the naked sides had staled.
Bread-thickened soups are a classic remedy for such situations: I love a ribollita, but unfortunately I was lacking in produce. A quick peek in my crisper revealed a wan carrot, a lone yellow onion, and a couple rogue cloves of garlic, while the shelves above offered a wilting bunch of parsley and most of a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes I’d dipped into for the previous night’s pasta. A little googling led me to pappa al pomodoro, a Tuscan technique for stretching bread and tomatoes into a simple but hearty stew. The Serious Eats recipe calls for a quick vegetable stock; I half-assed it with my carrot, the outer layers of my onion, and the dregs of some homemade vegetable bouillon that had been lingering on my fridge door longer than I’d like to admit. This gets gradually ladeled over your tomatoes, alliums, and bread, until the latter breaks down to form a custardy porridge. Most recipes incorporate basil, either simmered or sprinkled to finish, alongside a healthy glug of olive oil. Lacking basil, I doubled down on the olive oil and flaky salt, though I imagine a fridge-cleaning salsa verde or green chutney might work here as well, as would a hit of freshly grated parm, or a poached or jammy egg if you wanted a bit more bulk.
TMYK: GHEE WIZ!
(SB) When I was in high school, my beloved cult-figure English teacher boldly told the class that ghee simply tastes like rancid butter. He had tried some while hiking in Nepal years prior and did not need to do so ever again. Perhaps this man had indeed sampled some spoiled ghee, or perhaps he was attempting to integrate and make sense of life as the kind of WASP who enjoyed attending Colgate University while living on the West Side of Los Angeles married to a white woman who taught yoga from their living room. I simply cannot say. What I can say is that his casual cultural chauvinism has lent a special texture to the whole-hearted embrace of ghee by the culinary wunderkinds and health goths the world around in the subsequent decade. After plenty of reflection I have decided to leave it at this: it’s clear (clarified if you will) who’s on the right side of this history.
For those of you not in the know, ghee is clarified butter — or, butter without the milk solids. If made correctly, it can sit on your counter for a couple of months; depending on your room temperature, it’s anywhere from a soft-solid to pure liquid. There is a vast literature on ghee’s chemical make-up and attendant health benefits (some of it linked above) but in short: it’s good for a troubled gut, a great medium for ayurvedic remedies, and my grandmothers both believed that feeding plenty of it to my pregnant mother would make me real smart. And were they wrong? Absolutely not.
It’s also highly versatile in the kitchen — particularly for recipes that do well with some high-fat liquid gold. Perhaps most obviously, ghee is a great medium for tempering spices to top your dals and biryanis, the foundation of many subcontinental desserts (really) and arguably the best dipping sauce for lobster tails and rolls alike. It’s also excellent in more unconventional uses: basting a steak or poaching shrimp, frying or soft scrambling eggs, and greasing a pan for pancakes sweet and savory. On hot rice, it is close to ecstacy, particularly when followed up with sambar or dal and a sauteed veggie. It even makes khichidi, dreaded porridge of my sickbed, appealing.
To make you own, simply chop up a pound of unsalted butter and heat it in a heavy-bottomed pot. In time, it will foam and the milk solids will rise to the top. Skim them off (and reserve for other uses.) Once the solids are skimmed, transfer to a clean glass jar — and you’re done! To tweak the flavor of your ghee, you might (you should) make brown-butter ghee with a little extra stove time, Canna-ghee for particularly potent chilling, or some spiced Niter Kibbeh for a little cultural crossover (JS: kitfo hive assemble).
Of course, there are some things that just call for butter and not ghee. Toast, in my opinion, is one of them: you need a little of that cholesterol-rich goodness to get a good spread (though it does take well to softer breads, like when you’re preparing a grilled cheese). Since simmering butter to make ghee evaporates much of the water, ghee is also liable to make you baked goods extra-crispy (maybe you’re into that though) and render icing a gloopy mess.
PERMANENT ROTATION: Asparagus almondine a la Melissa Clark; also works well with string beans (haricots vert) out of season!
WISH LIST
(JS) I’d love to upgrade my hand washing routine with a refillable bottle of Follain’s everything soap. Those within walking distance of the soon-to-shutter New York brick and mortar location take note: friend of the newsletter Binki says you can get 15% off your purchase if you select in-store pickup.
(SB) When I am done with this chapter, I have promised to deep clean my apartment and transform my bathroom into a lush and tranquil spa. I’d like some tools to get deeply into both Nordic and Japanese bathing cultures… perhaps these Iris Hantverk brushes will be my first purchase. These Onsen mineral bath salts might be my second.
(JS & SB) Much to our dismay, Chinatown stalwart Pearl River Mart will shut down its flagship location by the end of the month. Luckily, you can still find one of a kind Pearl River favorites at their Chelsea Market spin off or online. Our tired feet (why are they tired?? We never leave our homes [JS: pre-Subu, ofc]) have been eyeing this wooden foot massager.
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