Tag: brunch

Categories
Breads and Crackers The Book

198. Currant Tea Scones p.598

The recipe

Scones are serious business. Done right, they’re transcendent, rich, with just a hint of sweetness and a striated flaky texture. A scone should be substantial, but not dense. Unfortunately they’re often done very very poorly. Starbucks gets my vote for worst mass market scone. Their oversized scones are dense enough to sink, and so dry you can’t get through a bite without a sip of coffee. The few times I’ve eaten them I’ve ended up with an Elmer’s school glue paste in my mouth, and a boulder in my stomach. This scone philosophy may work for Starbucks’ bottom line, but it has no place in my kitchen.

This recipe has a much happier take on the classic British treat. Here you make a quick dough by working butter into a mixture of flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, then gently mixing in half-and-half until a sticky dough forms. You stir in currents which have been plumped in just a couple of tablespoons of hot brewed tea, form the dough into a disk, score it, brush it with half-and-half, then sprinkle it with sugar and bake.

The Good: The scones came out with pretty much the texture I was hoping for, tender-chewy cake stacked in airy layers. The cream and sugar brushing gave a nice gloss to the upper sides, and the bottoms were just barely golden. All in all a pretty darn good scone.

The Bad: I’m quite picky about scones, so while the results were generally good, there was room for improvement. First, they were a little too dry, substituting full fat cream for half-and-half might have taken care of that. Second, I like currants as much or more than the next guy, but half as many would have been plenty. Third, I wasn’t a huge fan of the bake, and then cut, plan with these. I prefer to bake scones separately, because the sweet and shiny outer layer is the best part. This cut-a-disk-up-like-a-cake strategy messes up the surface to volume ratio. Fourth, I thought going in that soaking the currants in tea might add a tea flavour to the scones, but it really did nothing at all. There’s nothing wrong with not-tea-flavoured scones, but the plumping in tea step was a bit of a waste of time. If there’s no way to get the tea above the threshold of human perception I’d just use hot water instead. Finally, this recipe is for an unusually small batch. It makes just 4 scones. That’s about breakfast for two. If I’m going to go to the trouble of making scones I’d like to count on some leftovers, so I’d plan on doubling or tripling the recipe.

The Verdict: Overall this is a solid scone recipe. It’s not my ideal, but I think scones are largely a matter of personal taste. It comes fairly close to what I’m looking for in a scone, and it’s a good basis for further experimentation.

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

177. Baked French Toast p.650


The recipe

The blurb for this recipe suggests that it’s an easy and fuss-free way to make French Toast. I couldn’t disagree more. This looks like a scaled down restaurant recipe to me, and what works for breakfast for hundreds doesn’t necessarily make much sense when serving six. The idea with the recipe is to make a basic French toast batter (eggs, milk, salt) and pour it over buttered slices of bread in a buttered baking dish. You then let the mixture soak into the bread in the fridge for at least an hour. The bread then needs to warm up to room temperature, whereupon it’s sprinkled with sugar and baked in a 450 oven for 20 to 25 minutes. I can make normal people French toast for six and have everything cleaned up in 25 minutes, so what’s the point of this recipe? The Book suggests that you should assemble the dish and let the bread soak overnight, so that it can be popped in the oven while you’re setting the table and squeezing the orange juice (I wonder how many oranges are juiced rhetorically for every real life glass of fresh squeezed orange juice). I guess one advantage of this approach is that all the dishes can be done the night before, and you do have a bit less to do in the morning. But you also have to wake up extra early to take the baking dish out of the fridge and preheat the oven. Making normal French toast requires washing a cutting board, a mixing bowl, and a frying pan. I’m willing to wait until after breakfast to get to those. If I was serving this dish to twenty people this approach would make a lot of sense, but as it is it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

The greatest crime of this recipe is that it didn’t taste particularly good. There was nothing bad or objectionable about it, but it was very very dull. I always add vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg to my French toast, and I prefer to use a more interesting bread (sourdough is good) than the “soft supermarket Italian” loaf the recipe calls for. I understand that French toast is mostly a vehicle for maple syrup delivery, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to be boring. I should give The Book due credit for calling for whole milk in the recipe, I was sure they’d find a way to integrate heavy cream.

If I had a giant group coming for breakfast I’d consider tripling this recipe, and adding some flavour to it. Beyond spices and different bread I’d increase the called for 1/4 teaspoon of salt to 1/2 teaspoon. As it was it was OK, we ate it, and once it was drowned in maple syrup we enjoyed it, but I’d say this recipe is a definite missed opportunity.

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

170. Tomato, Garlic, and Potato Frittata p.632


The recipe
The Book’s blurb before the recipe suggests that this dish is equally good as a breakfast dish, or for dinner. I’m not convinced that it belongs in the breakfast section at all. I wanted to make a fritatta as a simple way of doing eggs for a crowd, but this dish is actually more of a potato pancake bound together with eggs. I’m a great fan of fritattas because they’re so hands off. I use them as a fridge cleanup device. On a Saturday morning we’ll make coffee, and haul all the tags ends of vegetables out of the crisper, chop them up and brown them in a cast iron pan. While they’re frying we go over the weeks leftovers, and see what can bulk up the fritatta, if we find leftover steak we celebrate, leftover chili makes it a Mexican fritata, and potatoes are an especially prized find. I tried adding leftover rice, but it wasn’t too successful. Once anything and everything is in the pan, I pour a few beaten eggs over top, and leave the pan on the burner for about a minute. I then sprinkle some grated cheese over the still liquid eggs, and pop in in the oven under the broiler for about three minutes. Once the cheese is browned and bubbling I take it out. Like a quiche the centre should still be a bit wobbly as it will continue to cook with the residual heat in the pan. The fritatta is a standby improvised dish for us, but the proportion of eggs to other stuff is a constant. I fight with my impulse to use up all the leftovers, because an overloaded frittata is just no good.

This particular frittata starts by making a mixture of eggs and egg whites, Parmigiano-Reggiano, sliced basil, salt, and pepper. You then lightly brown garlic in a skillet, remove it, and soften diced potatoes in the pan. The potatoes come out, and tiny grape tomatoes are browned until their skins split. Then the potatoes and garlic added back in, and the egg mixture is poured overtop. The eggs cook for 3 minutes uncovered, and 5 mintues covered on top of the stove, then gets put under the broiler for 5 minutes more. Parmesan is sprinkled on top, and put back under the broiler to brown for 2 or 3 minutes more. Then in a nerve wracking move you slide the fritata onto a serving place, and slice it into wedges.

For those of you who are counting, the fritata cooked for 15-16 minutes. My standard fritata is nicely set after 5, not surprisingly the eggs in this dish were overdone and dry.  I misread the instructions, and sprinked the cheese on top before it went under the broiler for the first time, so the parmesan was overdone by the time I took it out, but that’s my fault. My main complaint was the proportions though, by weight there was as much potato and tomato as egg in this recipe, and I was really looking forward to a much eggier dish.

I think the basic concept of this frittata is solid, but I wasn’t thrilled with the excecution. The potato-garlic-tomato-basil flavour combination is a good one. My ideal version of this dish would use more eggs, cook them less, mix up the cheeses (think goat), add fresh basil on top, and cut the potatoes into larger chunks so that they could be browned before going into the fritatta. To me the frittata is a casual and convenient dish, and this version was a bit too overwrought for my tastes, the ingredients in the pan, ingredients out of the pan dance was more effort than I’m willing to put into what should be a very straightforward breakfast. My standby whatever-you-have-on-hand fritatta is much simpler, and ends up tasting better than this one does, so I’ll give it a miss next Saturday morning.

Categories
Breads and Crackers The Book

168. Cheddar Scallion Drop Biscuits p.597

The recipe

The Boys were over for breakfast, and I decided to make them biscuits. One of them has been living down in the Carolinas for the last few years, and has become something of a biscuit connoisseur, so I didn’t dare try a traditional buttermilk biscuit. These are far simpler, and less error prone. It’s a basic biscuit dough (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter, buttermilk) with a bit of sugar, cheddar cheese and scallions mixed in. These aren’t kneaded or shaped which when done wrong can toughen the biscuits, they’re not cut out so there’s no risk of collapsing the flaky layers, and there aren’t twenty generations of ancestors looking over your shoulder to make sure you do it exactly right. You just blend butter into the dry ingredients, stir in the cheese and scallions, and barely mix in the buttermilk (gluten is still your enemy). The biscuits get unceremoniously dropped onto a baking sheet, and stuck in the oven.

As Epicurious posters have noted, the cooking time is off, at 450 these will be burned after the recommended 18-20 minutes, I started smelling a hint of char from the bottoms after 14-15 mintues. so don’t get too far from the oven, and use your nose.

They tasted a lot like the biscuits at Red Lobster. I don’t think I’ve been to a Red Lobster since 1998, but the taste of their biscuits is stuck in my food memory. They’re less over the top greasy (which unfortunately means not quite as good), in fact they’re a little dry. A bunch of the Epicurious posters recommended adding more buttermilk, and I think I’d go with that suggestion next time. The cheese flavour is prominent in these biscuits, I used some middle of the road aged cheddar, but I’d definitely choose the oldest sharpest stuff I could get my hands on next time, the cheese is the make or break ingredient, so choose it wisely. I really liked the addition of scallions, the onion flavour wasn’t overwhelming, or un-breakfasty, just delicious. The exteriors of these biscuits were glossy and crispy, and while the insides were a bit dry once they’d cooled, they were lovely and tender when warm. The solution is obviously never to let these cool down.

These biscuits were a success, they’re fairly idiot proof, so I can handle making them before the espresso machine has heated up. The ingredients are mostly things you’ll have on hand (or maybe normal people don’t absolutely always have scallions in the fridge, but that’s just semantics), they taste good, and look pretty. While the recipe has a few problems, with a couple modification I think they could be a breakfast standby.

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

144. Coffee Coffee Cake with Espresso Glaze p.644


The recipe

I brought this cake to a brunch at a friend’s last spring. I’m going to have a difficult time giving it a fair rating, because I had horrible seasonal allergies and couldn’t taste anything. I barely remember the brunch, and had to leave after about an hour. My head was so muddled that I’d forgotten my camera, and had to borrow the hosts. He sent me the photos recently, and I’ve been trying to piece this dish back together. The recipe is found in the Breakfast and Brunch section, but it could certainly work for a dinner party.

I should say to anyone reading this that actually attended the brunch, that even though I was feeling awful and sneezing with abandon, I was scrupulous about leaving the room to sneeze, and washing my hands thoroughly before touching your food. I really hate to cook when I’m sick, and definitely worry about contaminating people. I’m not sure how paranoid that actually is though. People who work in restaurants go to work sick all the time, it’s not something we like to think about, but it’s true. If Anthony Bourdain is to be believed they also go to work high, blood splattered, and vomiting, and we’re generally all right. I have a lot of faith in the awesomeness of the human immune system, and the abilities of heat to kill off the nasty stuff that’s gotten into our food. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to take a chance with someone else’s health though.

The recipe followed a fairly standard cake method, mix the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, in a bowl, then cream butter and sugar in another bowl, add eggs, and vanilla. Then, add the dry ingredients, and sour cream, in alternate batches to the wet ingredients. You then separate 1/3 of the mixture, and add barely dissolved instant espresso to it. You then layer the light and dark batters in a buttered bundt pan and bake for about an hour. Once the cake is unmolded and cooled, you cover it with an espresso glaze made with instant espresso powder, strong brewed coffee (I used a shot of espresso), and confectioners sugar.

I did eat a piece of this cake, but I have no idea what it tasted like. The bitterness of the coffee was the only flavour that managed to cut through the fuzzy sock coating my tongue. Since it’s from The Book, I’m willing to to out on a limb and say that it was probably too sweet. It had a very appealing texture though, moist, with a big fluffly crumb. My dining companion remembers this cake fondly, and it was well received at the brunch. Most of it had disappeared by the time I crawled home to bed. Since people praised it at the time, and brought it up weeks later, it can’t have been bad. The recipe is found in the Breakfast and Brunch section, but it could certainly work for a dinner party. If I didn’t have so many other recipes to get to, I’d make it again, just to find out what it was really like.

I’ll give it an estimated rating of

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

92. Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Cups p.634

The recipe

The eggs are really pretty, taste great, and come in manageable individual sized portions. It’s not really practical to do fried eggs for a crowd, you end up spending all your time at the stove, and the toast gets cold. The solution is often scrambled, or poached eggs. Scrambled are nice, but a bit boring, and I really like having a yolk to dip into. Poached are great, and as my poaching skills improve I appreciate it more and more. I’m always worried about getting the eggs out of the pan, nicely drained, and onto the plate without breaking at least one of them though.

This type of dish is a nice option for a big brunch. Slices of ham are fitted into muffin cups, and filled with a mixture of sautéed mushrooms and shallots, fresh tarragon, and crème fraîche. Each cup is topped with an egg, and then popped in the oven at 400 degrees until the whites are set. They’re excellent little self-contained dishes that are easy to serve, and most of the work can be done ahead. They’re easy to make, the presentation is impressive, and quite charming.

I was a big fan of the flavours at work here. The ham crisped up and showed off its bacony side, which paired well with the classic mushroom tarragon combination. The crème fraîche added a bit of richness and luxury, and the egg was a none to subtle reminder that this was a breakfast dish.

Despite my enthusiasm, the recipe had some technical problems. When buying the ham for this recipe it’s important to get slices without any holes, otherwise the filling will leak out. I decided that thicker slices should stay together better, but I failed to consider that they’re less malleable. I had trouble getting them into the egg cups, and ended up cracking some of them. In the end, a lot of the filling did run out of them. This isn’t really the recipe’s fault, after all it did warn me. But your ham should be neither too thick nor too thin, and the more uniform it is the better.

The real problem with the recipe came in the baking of the eggs. I put them in the oven for the recommended 15 minutes, but the whites weren’t even close to being set. It took an extra 10 minutes for them to set up. Unfortunately the yolks were fully set by that point, which was a real letdown. It’s possible that the broiler element came on at some point during the eggs’ cooking and applied too much direct heat from the top. Since you don’t really care if the eggs steam a bit, you could probably cover the muffin tin in the oven.

I’m not sure where I went wrong with the eggs, Teena at the other gourmet project made these recently. She didn’t seem to like them nearly as much as I did, but the eggs in her photo look like they have set whites and runny yolks. I may have messed up somewhere along the line.

These eggs looked and tasted great, and were really easy to make. Mine didn’t work out as well as they could have, but they were still delicious. Tarragon is a prominent flavour here, and not one you often find in breakfast dishes. For me that was a welcome surprise, I’m always happy to eat more tarragon. It doesn’t really jump to mind when you think of flavours to pair with coffee and orange juice though. I think these eggs work best as part of a less breakfasty brunch. I served them with baguette and a green salad, which worked really well. I’m excited to try these again, if I can find a way to maintain my ham’s structural containment and sort the eggs out, I think this dish could be a real winner.