What is With That Plastic Baby Jesus Thingy?

"It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh; and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi-Gras in New Orleans." 

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Letter to Pamela Moffett, 9 and 11 March 1859

Mardi Gras King Cake

            

            Carnival. Mardi Gras. Shrove Tuesday. Whatever you call it, it’s the last hurrah before you give up your beloved enter delicious food item here, before Lent. If you aren’t religious, it’s even better. You don’t have to give up anything for one hell of a party.

            And what’s a party it is. While Brazil, Venice and New Orleans are best known for their blowout parades and balls, other countries (this means you, grumpy Protestant Europe) have more subdued traditions. But all of them have one thing in common: Food. Lots of it. The worse for you, the better. We’re talking lots of fat, sugar and eggs.

            In France and the UK, there are often pancakes (not the fat American kind – more like a crepe). Poland has Paczki, which is fried pastry dough with a pastry crème filling (not unlike a donut in concept – but far better tasting in reality).  Sweden has also has an almond crème filled pastry called semlor. And Italians also have fried pastries in various shapes and fillings including fritelle, sfingi, castagnole, etc.[1]

            And then there is King Cake. Named after the biblical three kings, King Cake makes it’s appearance after Epiphany (celebrating the day the Magi visits the baby Jesus) in January. In France, la galette des Rois comes in two varieties: one made of puff pastry with an almond paste (frangipane) filling popular in northern France, and another in the south, made with a brioche-type dough studded with candied fruits. Spain and Latin America also have a similar cake to the southern French one, except the dried fruit is on top, not within, the cake itself.

            And New Orleans? Well, just like America itself, the cake is loud and gaudy and heavy. Typically, the cake is an egg and butter enriched yeast dough with some kind of filling (cinnamon is the most common), shaped into an oval with purple, green and gold icing and sugar on top. 

            But what about this baby Jesus thing? The one thing that is common to all King Cakes is a little trinket representing the Baby Jesus baked inside the cake. Before the advent of plastic, a fava bean or a dried pea was the Baby (and still is traditional in Europe and Latin America). The US, being the US, we have plastic babies. And once again, the US being the US, you can’t bake it in the cake anymore without someone throwing a lawsuit. Thus, the plastic babies are still traditional, but usually left outside the cake or tucked inside right before serving.

            But why bother? Because if you get the little bean or trinket, you get the “honor” of supplying the King Cake the next year. Or even better, in Mexico you have supply tamales for Candlemas. And oh yeah, if you’re into royalty, you get to be called King or Queen for the day.

            All that effort for a made-in-China plastic non-recyclable tchotcke? Forget the baby. Stick with the cake. Happy Mardi Gras!

King Cake

2 tbs. butter

8 oz. sour cream or cream fraiche

6 tbs. sugar

½ tsp. salt

1 envelope dry yeast

½ tbs. sugar

¼ c. warm water (110F)

1 large egg

3-31/2 c. flour (do not use cake flour)

¼ c. sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

3 tbs. butter, room temperature

Colored icing:

11/2 c. powdered sugar

11/2 tbs. melted butter

1-2 tbs. milk

dash of vanilla extract

green food coloring

yellow food coloring

purple food coloring  (or a combo of red/blue food colorings)

Colored sugar crystals in yellow, green and purple

1.     Take 2 tbs. of butter, sour cream, sugar and salt and cook over medium low heat, stirring often, until the butter melts. Take off stove and cool to 110F.

2.     Stir yeast, ½ tbs. of sugar and ¼ c. warm water in a large bowl to dissolve. Set aside for five minutes or until mixture becomes bubbly.

3.     Add butter/sour cream mixture and egg to yeast and stir thoroughly. Add in 1 to 11/2 c. of flour to start and then add the rest of the flour until a soft dough appears (it will be sticky!) and starts to pull away from the bowl (this can be done in an electric mixer).

4.     Knead dough on a floured surface until dough is smooth and elastic – about 8 to 10 minutes. Lightly grease a large bowl, and turn dough around to coat. Cover bowl with a clean towel and leave in a warm, draft-free place to rise, until doubled in size, about an hour.

5.     In a small bowl, stir cinnamon and sugar together. Set aside.

6.     Punch dough down and roll out dough into a 28 by 10 inch rectangle. Spread softened butter on top of dough. Sprinkle sugar-cinnamon mixture on top. With the long side facing you, roll dough tightly in a jellyroll fashion.  Seam side down, make into an oval shape, using a bit of water to seal the ends together and place on a non-stick baking sheet.

7.     Cover again with a clean towel and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled, about 20-30 minutes.

8.     Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F and bake 20 minutes until golden.  Cool for an hour before frosting and decorating.

9.     Icing: Stir together all ingredients, except for food coloring, until smooth (you may need to add more or milk to get the consistency you want). Divide the icing into three batches and add 1 drop of food coloring into each. 

10. To decorate cake: Drizzle colored icing in desired fashion (since I have a 6- year old, it’s the dump and spread method). While the icing is still wet, sprinkle colored sugars as desired. Let icing set before serving. Best eaten within 2-3 days (it won’t last that long though).

---

[1] Pastry debates, like pasta debates, are contingent upon region. As one of my friends, married to a woman from Bari said, “All Italian cooking is good, but we all know that Southern Italian cooking is best.” I suspect this statement is what has kept his marriage intact.

We are 40 Light Years Outside of the Buttermilk Nebula

Koldskål

“A quarrel is like buttermilk, once it's out of the churn; the more you shake it, the more sour it grows”

- Irish Saying

            Wow. That was fast. Vacation is officially over. A couple of notes before today’s post. First, we’ll be making a couple of changes to the website: new design, new logo and yes, unfortunately, advertising. I would prefer to be without it, but we all got to make a living (writers included!). But the upside is that hopefully with the new design changes, you’ll have a better reading experience – or at least a prettier reading experience.

            Second, I will be live blogging and tweeting from the Copenhagen MAD Symposium and Nordic Food Festival at the end of August. It’s a crazy week of David Chang, reindeer jerky, science, NOMA, sea buckthorn, Icelandic purple seaweed, molecular gastronomy, foraging, and who knows what else. I’m especially excited about roasting an entire cow. Stay tuned!

            And onto today’s post!

        There are certain foods that have people have a love affair with. Chocolate. Cheese. Pasta. Any pork product. And then, there’s butter.

If you ask any classically trained chef, they will swear by butter. Sauces, pastries, bread, Indian food, steaks – there is very little in this world that can’t be improved by the addition of butter. And for others, butter should be declared a human right (My husband’s grandmother hung her head in shame when she described Polish migrant workers received margarine rations for their bread.)

The basic science of butter is pretty simple.[1] Milk out of the cow is composed of fat (in the form of cream), protein, lactose (milk sugar), minerals and water. The majority of it is water, around 88 percent. To make butter, the fat must be allowed to separate (about 12-15 hours, undisturbed) from the milk. The cream is skimmed off leaving the rest as “skimmed” milk. At this point, the cream is about 20 percent fat (“light” cream at the grocers).  But it’s still not enough fat to be considered “butter” which is about 65-80 percent fat. [2]

This is where the magic comes in. The butterfat in cream will not readily surrender its happy little globules of goodness. Each fat globule is covered with a coating of phosolipids and protein that prevent the fat globules from coming together. Churning, the process in which butter is made, breaks those membranes to allow the butterfat to come together. The liquid is drained and the butter is salted (or not) and packed. That’s it.

But what happens to that liquid? The remaining liquid is buttermilk. For generations of farmers, buttermilk was used in cooking and feeding to livestock. But at least this generation of Americans, buttermilk, unless you are in the South or at brunch, usually generates a giant “HUH?” at the grocers.[3]

But if you are in Northern Europe, South Asia or the Middle East, buttermilk is everywhere. Not only is it a by-product of butter making, but it is also one of the few milk products that resists spoilage. How? Your friend Lactococcus lactis.

Lactococcus lactis are naturally occurring bacteria in milk. Freshly milked milk, within a couple of hours, will start to ferment. The bacteria metabolize lactose, milk sugar, into energy and lactic acid. This process is the reason why buttermilk has that tangy, lemony flavor[4] – it’s due to the acid. And it’s also the same reason why buttermilk has a long shelf life- most other bacteria cannot tolerate acidic environments.[5] Furthermore lactic acid will coagulate the remaining proteins in milk-thus the viscosity generating the particular viscosity of buttermilk.

Now I don’t recommend drinking buttermilk straight, unless you are used to or like the particular sourness and texture of buttermilk. (Germans do it all the time. It is also the basis for lassi-type drinks in South Asia.) But it lends itself nicely to many recipes – not just baked goods. Buttermilk is the basis for a lot of cold soups and dressings. Buttermilk also is excellent as a meat tenderizer – the acid helps to break down meat fibers as well as a coating for fried foods (buttermilk’s thickness protects the food from overcooking as well as let coatings stick properly).[6]

And here’s another reason to like buttermilk. It’s good for you. Not only is it low fat, but also the bacteria cultures used to make buttermilk are good for intestinal health. Mr. and Ms. Bacteria already pre-digest the lactose. But further down the pipeline, they stick to the lining of the intestinal wall and get busy doing stuff like guarding the intestinal wall, producing antibacterial compounds, break down cholesterol and bile acids and eat up potential carcinogens.

So please. Give buttermilk a chance. Lactococcus lactis needs a new home.

Koldskål

             As mentioned above, Northern Europeans have been eating buttermilk for quite some time. In the summer, it becomes the basis for many cold soups that can be served as a light lunch or dessert. Koldskål is one of those dishes. A sweetened buttermilk soup, it is served traditionally with little sweet biscuits or cookies called kammerjunkere. In Denmark, they are easy to find, but anywhere else, you’ll have to make your own, or in a pinch, substitute broken biscotti or cantucinni bits. Other people serve it with fruit but that is frowned upon by the Danish food orthodoxy. Whatever. It’s all good. And you don’t have to cook it. Even better.

61/2 c. buttermilk (organic is good if you can find it)

2 eggs (see note)

1/2 c. sugar

zest from 1 lemon

juice from 1 lemon

seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod (can use vanilla sugar-just omit pod or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract)

1.     Beat eggs and sugar together in a large bowl until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns pale yellow and thick. Stir in buttermilk, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla seeds until well blended.

2.     Place into refrigerator for at least 2 hours to cool and meld flavors. Serve cold in bowls with broken biscotti, digestives, kammerjunkere or fruit.

Note: I don’t get really ooged out by raw eggs, but I know plenty that do. No worries. You can easily used refrigerated egg product or coddle them to kill any bacteria. (To coddle an egg, boil water and gently place egg into pot. Turn off heat and let egg sit for 1 minute. Egg now ready for use.)

---

[1] Making it is also really simple, but we will leave that for another post!

[2] In making commercial butter, the cream is concentrated to about 45 percent fat. The cream is concentrated by evaporating excess water.

[3] This is not to say that Americans don’t use buttermilk. In fact condensed buttermilk and dried buttermilk are commonly used in commercial ice cream and other food products. Ever had pancakes from a box? Dried buttermilk is in there. Ranch Doritos? Dried buttermilk.

[4] This is the same reason why European or European-style butters taste a bit tangy compared to American butters. Europeans use slightly cultured milk versus sweet milk in their butters.

[5] For many cultures, the practice of drinking buttermilk comes from this fact. Buttermilk resists spoilage even at room temperature for several days. If you lived before modern refrigeration, this is a good thing. If you have a husband who doesn’t remember to place the milk in the fridge, this is also a good thing.

[6] Southern cooks have known this for years. Fried chicken anyone?

Girls in Trees

Cherry Plum Picking

“Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing "Embraceable You" in spats.”

- Woody Allen, Director, Actor and Writer

            If you were a girl, you probably remember being pelted with berries at some time in your elementary school existence. Most were pretty harmless – unless you got the squishy kind. The kind that goes splat on your back, leaves a stain on your my Little Pony t-Shirt and leaves you crying on the way home (no bad memories here…). More than likely that berry was probably Prunus cerasifera, or cherry plums.

            While other stone fruits (drupe is the technical botanical name), such as peaches, nectarines and apricots[1], get all the attention during July and August, cherry plums never go to the ball. And that is a pity, because once you realize they are there, your pantry will be full of amazing plum jam, plum wine and even, homemade plum sauce.

            But where are they? That’s the amazing thing. They are really quite common. In Northern Europe they are commonly used as hedgerow plants, mainly because they are quite easy to grow and need very little maintenance. They are also popular plants for landscapers as they tolerate urban environments quite readily, especially poor or clay packed soil. Furthermore, they are often the first plants to flower (in February or March), spreading some flower power during the dreary days of late winter/early spring.

Cherry Plum Leaves

            Their fruit and their leaf shape readily identify the plants. First, the fruit look like cherries in color and size (their scientific name, Prunus cerasifera, means “plum that bears cherries”), but if you take a bite of them, you will realize quickly that it does not have either the strong almondy flavor/scent of cherries (this comes from the strong presence of benzaldehyde). Plums, on the other hand, have a more lactones, lending themselves to the particularly “peachy” smell. Second, their tree (see picture) has small razor-edged leaves and their fruit is hanging on stems, much like cherries. Third, the tree itself is rather bushy – more like a shrub or small tree – with small branches. Some can grow up to 15 meters (75 feet) high, but those are not the norm.

            But the real question is, how do they taste? SOUR. Well, I have to admit, unlike apples or pears, you cannot eat them out of hand. But they make for great jam and fantastic pastries. You can put them in cake or pie, or make it into chutney to go with pork. And if you are a boozehound, you can also make it into slivovitz, the famous Balkan plum brandy (warning: the stuff is STRONG). Whatever you do – don’t let them go to waste. Every fruit deserves to go the royal ball.

Plum Cherry Crumble

Cherry Plum Crumble

            The nice thing about plums is their high pectin content. This means you don’t have to add any thickener, such as cornstarch, to the fruit – it will thicken on its own. Also, you don’t need to pick completely ripe fruit. It won’t affect the flavor and in fact, overripe cherry plums are a pain to de-stone – they are very mushy and mealy. And please note, the stones (pits) contain hydrogen cyanide – yes, as in will-kill-you cyanide. (This is also the chemical that gives bitter almonds, used in marzipan and amaretti, their characteristic flavor). The cyanide is contained also in the leaves, but trust me, you won’t be tempted to eat either the pit or the leaves; they are distinctly bitter. And not to worry hypochondriacs. The amounts of cyanide in both the pits and leaves are so miniscule that you won’t be going to the hospital – unless have a panic attack.  By the way, if you go tree climbing for these yummies, wear long pants and a tight fitting shirt to avoid being scratched by all the twigs and have some Advil on hand. I’m still sore from hours of climbing.

1 1/4 c. flour

3/4 c. oats (old-fashioned or steel cut – NOT instant)

1 1/3 c. of brown sugar, packed

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of salt

1/2 c. butter (1 stick) cut into small pieces and chilled

2 pds. cherry plums, halved and pitted

1 tbs. liquor such as amaretto, eau de vie, or kirsch (optional)

crème fraiche or ice cream for serving

1.     Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Mix flour, oats, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. Take the butter and rub butter into the flour mixture until it has a meal-like consistency. (If not using immediately, set aside in the fridge)

2.     In another bowl, take 1 cup of brown sugar, plums, and liquor (if using) and mix thoroughly. Taste and add more sugar if necessary (you may need to, if your plums are particularly sour). Place plums into a 9-inch deep dish pie or tart pan, sprinkle crumb topping on top and bake until the fruit bubbles and topping is browned, about an hour.

3.     Cool slightly and serve warm or room temperature with ice cream of crème fraiche.

---

[1] All stone fruits, including peaches, cherries, nectarines, plums, etc. are directly related to the Prunus genus (which are all part of the Rosaceae or rose family). Almonds also belong to this group of fruits as well (Almonds are the seed of the Prunus amygdalus plant). All fruits belonging to genus Prunus are not self-pollinating, thus they must have a steady pollinator –usually bees – to pollinate them. This is why the development of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in bees is so devastating for California’s fruit production.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

When I first came to Denmark, I thought it was going to be something out of the Safety Dance music video: A bunch of medieval sprites singing 80’s New Wave hits in the Midsummer Night. It was fine until I heard Danish. Before I met my husband, I never heard Danish before. I assumed it sounded like the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show. “Aweenda shmure da froog's legs. Börk Börk Börk!" How hard could it be to talk like the Swedish Chef?

            Plenty, as I found out through months of language classes. While the grammar was fairly simple (it’s a lot like English), and the vocabulary was much like German, the pronunciation was like nothing I had ever heard before. I thought I was a language-idiot, until a linguist told me pronouncing Danish was notoriously difficult. For several months, various situations occurred that made me look like a raving lunatic with animal sounds. There was the trip to the Halal butcher in which I made bleating sounds, while hopping on one leg and holding up three fingers. The milk “situation” had me trying to do charades for low-fat organic milk. And the worst was the bakery. I was so frustrated trying to get my loaf of dark rye bread (rugbrød) that I had a crying fit sputtering the words “ruuuggggg-brrrrroooot” for 20 minutes around the block.

             I received all sorts of advice on how to improve my Danish pronunciation, such as:

            “Well, uh, imagine walruses talking. It kinda sounds like that.”

            “Take a giant piece of cotton, stuff into your mouth, then talk.”

            “Stick your tongue out. That helps.”

            But the best was when Danes, either as a cruel joke or linguistics through fire, tried to have me pronounce this phrase: Rødgrød med fløde.

            It’s the 8^th circle of hell. It had the soft “d”, the throaty “r” and seemingly endless glottal stops. After years of trying to deal with this shibboleth, I basically decided that I was going to be resigned to mispronouncing Danish. At a certain point I realized if I stuck with food I was only able to pronounce I would be an anemic, scurvy ridden mess.

            But every summer fills me with enunciative dread. Why? Because rødgrød med fløde is the unofficial summer dessert of Denmark. And I still can’t pronounce it correctly.

            But does it matter? I live in a country that has some of the most progressive tax systems in the world. In terms of environmental policies, Denmark is hailed as a model for sustainable living. I can take public transportation or bike anywhere. And cars are considered unnecessary.

            If you ask me, rødgrød med fløde is a small price to pay for better quality of life. I could only wish that it could so easy for the rest of the world.

GOLDMINE! Wild Forest Strawberries

Rødgrød med Fløde

            Rødgrød med fløde is a summer berry compote with cream. Although it’s impossible to pronounce, it’s rather easy to make, especially now that it is berry season. And if you have freshly foraged berries, all the better. And it really doesn’t matter which fruits you have – any combination will be delicious. Just remember to have ripe berries and be sure to chill it thoroughly; otherwise the compote will be too loose. And try to avoid the ultra-pasteurized cream or cream with stabilizers in it. Guar gum does not go well with fruit. And if you have any left over, you can use it in yogurt, as a topping for pancakes, or make some biscuits for a quick shortcake.

Velbekommen!

Rødgrød med fløde

3 pds. various soft fruit (red or black currants, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries, cherries, rhubarb, blueberries, etc.)

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. water

3 tbs. of cornstarch

6 tbs. cold water

1 c. heavy cream

1 tbs. vanilla sugar

1.     If using rhubarb, chop rhubarb into 1-inch pieces.  Place fruit, sugar and water in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a simmer.

2.     In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and cold water into a slurry. When the fruit has started to break down, add cornstarch mixture and stir until the fruit mixture has started to thicken to the consistency of a heavy syrup.

3.     Take fruit mixture off heat, cover, and chill for at least 2 hours, until cold.

When ready to serve, combine vanilla sugar with cream. (You can also whip your cream to soft peaks if you like). Place fruit mixture into individual serving bowls and top with cream.