Tag: lemon

Categories
Sandwiches & Pizzas The Book

74. Lemon Coleslaw p.193

The recipe

This coleslaw is meant to be served as part of Shredded Pork and Lemon Coelsaw Sandwiches (p.192). I made the slaw on it’s own though. This dish is found in the Sandwiches and Pizzas section of The Book, and this is the first recipe I’ve done from that section. So, let’s open Sandwiches and Pizzas with a coleslaw.

It was a very light, cooling, and fresh slaw. It wasn’t weighed down by a gallon of dressing, and the lemon flavours made the whole dish taste bright and clear. On the other hand, the cabbage retained all of it’s crispness. I like crunchy cabbage in a slaw, but this was going a little too far. My jaw hurt from the effort.

The dish is as simple as you could ask for. Whisk together a bit of sour cream, mayo, lemon zest and juice, water, sugar, salt, and pepper. Stir in sliced cabbage, grated carrots, scallions, and parsley. Let the whole thing sit in the fridge for an hour and serve. The hour in the fridge is supposed to give the sugar and salt in the dressing time to draw moisture out of the veg and wilt them a bit. But, after an hour the cabbage was just a tough as ever.

I sliced my cabbage as thinly as I could with a chef’s knife, and ended up with good looking pieces of cabbage. Maybe I sliced it too thickly for the one hour to be sufficient. If I’d used a mandolin to get narrower slices things might have worked out better. Alternately more time would have done the trick. I had some leftovers the next day for lunch and the texture was much better. Some of the freshness of the lemon had faded, but the whole salad had mellowed, and the cabbage still had a crisp bite without causing jaw cramps.

There were a lot of things to like about this slaw, but it needs some refinements. If I were to make it again I’d toss the dressing on to the sliced cabbage the night before, then add the carrots, scallions, parsley and a little refreshing squeeze of lemon an hour before I wanted to serve it. The flavours are really clean, but a bit unidimensional. If I were to make it again I’d add some sliced fennel into the mix. I really appreciated that the recipe allowed the cabbage to be front and centre. So many slaws are downed with goopy dressings in an attempt to hide the fact that you might be eating cabbage, so this was a refreshing change.

Categories
Cookies, Bars, and Confections The Book

49. Lemon Bars p.691

No recipe for this one. But they were so good I can’t help but giving you the recipe and them a five mushroom rating.

FOR CRUST
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

FOR FILLING
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt

Confectioners’ sugar for sprinkling

MAKE THE CRUST: Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350F.
Pulse together four, sugar, and salt in a food processor just until combined. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press dough onto bottom of an ungreased 9-inch square baking pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

MEANWHILE, MAKE THE FILLING: Whisk together eggs, granulated sugar, flour, heavy cream, zest, juice, and salt in a bowl until combined.

BAKE THE BARS: When crust is baked, rewhisk lemon mixture and pour onto hot crust. Bake until just set, about 16 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool.

Refrigerate bars, covered, until cold, at least 4 hours. Before serving, cut into bars and sprinkle with a thick layer of confectioners’ sugar.

I’m sure we’ve all eaten a million lemon bars, some insipid, some inspired. We all know the bad ones with their mushy oily crusts, and super sweet lemon topping that’s either sloppy pudding, or a Fruit Roll-Up. Worse is the health-food version with a cardboard dry crust that crumbles if you look at it, and artificial sweeteners. My ideal lemon bar is built on really good shortbread, where good quality fresh butter is a must. The topping should be a sweet-tart just set lemon custard that’s thick enough to stay in place but avoid gumminess at all costs.

This bar lived up to that ideal quite nicely. All of the shortbread recipes in The Book seem to come out beautifully, and this one was no exception. The lemon topping balanced the tart acid of the lemons with just enough sugar, and added zip to the smooth egg and cream custard. Add a bit of powdered sugar and it was good to to.

In making this recipe I learned the value of measuring your baking dish. It calls for a 9 inch square, and I grabbed something significantly larger without thinking it though. I spread the shortbread out on one half of the pan and baked it. When it came time to pour the liquid custard on top of it I realized I had a problem. I attempted to rig up a shield wall out of aluminum foil to keep the filling on the shortbread, but my wall breached during baking. I ended up with a deep pool of filling on one side of the sheet pan, and much less filling on the shortbread than I would have liked. It was still totally delicious with half the filling, and I can only imagine that it would have been better had I not messed up.

Lemon bars, you’re the second recipe in a row to earn your five mushroom rating. Kudos.

Categories
Sandwiches & Pizzas The Book

17. Grilled Eggplant Sandwiches With Lemon Aioli, Feta, and Mint p.182

the recipe

I sextupled this recipes and brought two sheet pans full to a picnic in the parc. They were devoured within seconds. I’m not sure if this was because they were scrumptious, or if my audience of hungry students wasn’t too discerning. I though these were OK, without being anything special. I think my expectations may have been a bit high. I was hoping for a very Mediterranean result, with feta, olive oil, garlic, lemon, eggplant, and mint. Somehow the mayonnaise in the aioli overwhelmed the other flavours, and the result was a bit bland. The mint did come through nicely.

I didn’t have access to a grill for these so I broiled the eggplant slices. Grilling might have added a nice smokiness, but the problem here didn’t lie in the eggplant. Toasting the buns I put them on would have been nice too. The recipe calls for a baguette, but for feeding a crowd rolls made more sense.

If I made these again I’d up the garlic and lemon juice, and use the best quality feta I could get my hands on. There really isn’t a lot of mayonnaise in here, but I think I’d try to cut it even further (would it still be an aioli? that’s a question for the ages). While this was better in theory than in practice, it wasn’t at all bad. In fact I’d make it again.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

13. Toasted Walnut, Roasted Red Pepper, and Cumin Spread p.12

the recipe

This was an absolute winner. Easy, cheap, packed with flavour, unusual, brightly coloured, exploding with garlic, what’s not to love? I’ve made this twice and I’m sure a third time is not too far away. There are flavours pulling in all sorts of directions here, sweet roasted red peppers and molasses, earthy cumin and walnuts, sharp garlic and red pepper flakes, an acidic bite of lemon juice, but everything plays very well together. It also changes a bit as you eat it. At first the sweet and spicy flavours are prominent, but after a few bites the nuts start to take centre stage.

I was complaining that the lamb tagine’s flavours were too scattered and working against each other. The flavours here are similar in some ways, but they’re pulling in concert. The result is my new favourite spread. The book suggests adding this sauce to meat, and while I haven’t tried it on a roast, I did put it on a turkey sandwich. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch.

The only downside here is that I think I might be slightly allergic to walnuts. It’s nothing much, just a slight numbing of my mouth and lips and a tickle at the back of my throat; particularly if they’re raw. I’d probably do well to limit my exposure to avoid kindling or sensitization though. Too bad.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

8. Steak Diane p. 427

I can’t find a recipe to link to, and that’s a real shame. This dish was a knockout. The classic version uses tenderloin, here The Book calls for much more affordable sirloins. The steaks were flavourful and ended up fillet mignon tender after a pummeling with an empty wine bottle. The steaks were seasoned with salt and pepper, then pan seared. I cooked down some shallots in the fat in the pan, and added a mixture of beef broth, Worcestershire, lemon juice, Dijon, Cognac, and Sherry (I used port). I reduced the sauce, and finished with butter and parsley.

The only change I’d make to this one would be to leave the parsley out of the sauce, it wilted kind of unattractively. I’d leave it out all together, but a bit in a chiffonade over the steaks would look nice.

This took all of 20 minutes to put together and it blew me away. I’m a sucker for a pan sauce because they rescue so much of the goodness you left behind in the pan, and can add complimentary flavours and complexity. In this case the sauce was exceptionally well balanced, and enhanced the flavour of the steaks without covering anything up. I loved that this took no time to prepare (dicing a whole cup of shallots was the most irritating part), didn’t cost an arm and a leg, and left a big impression with my guests. Traditionally the cognac is added right at the end of the dish and ignited table side, the recipe doesn’t call for it but big flames can do wonders to liven up a dinner party.

This was so good I’ve awarded it the first 5 mushroom rating of the project. Well done Steak Diane, well done.