Barley Porridge with Orange and Black Sesame

This was the big weekend, the one where home changed locations.

I keep trying to remember the day we moved out of our first apartment in this city, into a slightly larger, slightly quieter one four doors up the block. I can picture the movers -- one in particular, who carried a very tall bookshelf on his back around three flights of curved stairs like it was a pocketbook. I remember our first night in the new place, marveling at how much of a difference four doors west could make for the noise level. Everything was so...quiet. But before I picture all of this, my mind skips two steps backward, to the day I moved us into that first apartment, on the corner of a quiet street and a busy one. The apartment with the big bay window, the Formica counters, the incredibly-hip and not-totally-practical lofted bedroom, the wall I insisted on painting pink. Move-in day was just me - D was still in Michigan - and a pile of cheap furniture I'd found on Craigslist. One of the two front doors was stuck shut, so I spent the bulk of the day jamming the legs of various tables in the small front opening, then around and around that three-flight twisted staircase.

That was eight years ago. Since then, we've accumulated five more bottles of bitters (current favorites: Fee Brothers black walnut; Jack Rudy aromatic), and a pantry full of last year's preserves threatening to take away my canner for the season if I don't use them up soon. And of course, now we've got our daughter, too. She comes with her own accumulation: books and toys and tall stacks of hand-me-downs that could last beyond her first birthday. There certainly was more to pack and move this time around, which caused several nights of sleeplessness, 24 hours of mild turmoil, and lingering fatigue. But even more daunting than the actual move is the prospect of trying to hold onto memories from three homes. I don't want to lose any of it.

Our kitchen has been dark for much of the past month, save for a couple meals over father's day and a last-hoorah birthday dinner for our friend Jana. But before we shut down operations entirely, I cooked a batch of porridge from Ottolenghi's newest book, Plenty More, for breakfasts.

In a week full of transitions, that porridge was the perfect thing. Comforting and familiar, like a good bowl of oatmeal. Fresh and intriguing, from fragrant marinated orange segments and a pile of sugary, crunchy sesame seeds. The new and the old, together. That is how we will proceed.

Barley Porridge with Orange and Black Sesame Adapted from Ottolenghi's new cookbook, Plenty More Serves 4

I find constant inspiration from Ottolenghi's recipes - his celebration of vegetables, his bold embrace of meatless feasts. That said, his recipes are extraordinarily fussy, and -- at least for me -- not always in ways that improve the result. I've simplified his instructions liberally, so that something as homey as porridge can stay that way. If you want to make the original, get the cookbook. It's worth it.

For the porridge:
1 tablespoon mixed black and white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon muscovado sugar, divided
125 grams (scant cup) whole or pearled barley, covered with cold water and soaked overnight
750 ml (3 cups plus 2 tablespoons) whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1/2 a lemon Zest of an orange
Salt
20g tahini

For the orange topping:
1 orange
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon orange blossom water

Prepare orange topping: Peel off a strip of orange rind and add to a small saucepan. Next, supreme the orange, transferring both the segments and the resulting juice drippings into a bowl as you work. Set aside.

Add sugar and water to the pan with the strip of zest. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly, and cook until sugar has dissolved, about 3 minutes. Set aside to cool; then add orange blossom water and reserved orange segments and juice.

Make porridge: Drain and rinse the barley. Tip it into a medium saucepan with the remaining 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar, milk, citrus zest, and a three-finger pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to medium-low and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally, until the barley is cooked but still has some bite: if it's becomes very thick, add a little water towards the end.

Make sesame topping: Toast sesame seeds by shaking them around in a small, dry pan over medium heat until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Combine seeds and 1 teaspoon of muscovado sugar in a mortar, and crush lightly. Set aside.

Serve: Stir vanilla into porridge, then leave to cool for five minutes. Divide between four bowls. Dribble a teaspoon of tahini over each portion, spoon the orange segments and syrup, and sprinkle with sesame topping.

Best Mushroom Pizza (or any white pie, really)

I've been on a bit of a library bender. Did you know you can borrow Kindle books from the library? Like, without leaving the house? I'm working my way through the Goldfinch and My Brilliant Friend. Both highly recommended. And, in case two books isn't enough to juggle, I'm also casually reading a real-life paperback copy of The Debt to Pleasure, a novel full of foodstuff. It's glorious. Here, from the instructions for a certain Russian pancake:

"When smoke starts to rise out of the pan add the batter in assured dollops, bearing in mind that each little dollop is to become a blini when it grows up, and that the quantities here are sufficient for six. Turn them over when bubbles appear on top. Serve the pancakes with sour cream and caviar. Sour cream is completely straightforward and if you need any advice or guidance about it then, for you, I feel only pity."

Further evidence of my many-books-at-a-time habit: I have three cookbooks checked out of the library, and as of last week, they were all piled on my nightstand. One is Jim Lahey's My Pizza, which I may have owned at one point but no longer do. It's almost due back at the library, so last weekend we had friends over and I put the cookbook to use at a pizza night. The momentous occasion here is not that I actually cooked from a book before returning it, though that gets honorable mention; what's really noteworthy is that, after many failures, a couple semi-successes, and much handwringing, I finally mastered white pizza.

Tomato pie lovers, take note: I am on your team. D is, too -- perhaps even more vehemently than I. We both are loyal to red pies. That's partly because we love tomatoes, but partly it's because white pies are often brittle, dry things with a heap of vegetables, but nothing to soften those vegetables and coax them into submission. More like flatbread than like pizza.

The answer, at least according to Jim Lahey? Embrace the genius of bechamel.

Bechamel is white pizza's answer to tomato sauce. It bridges the gap between crust and topping. Also -- dare I suggest it has an advantage over tomato? -- it gets bubbly and browned in the oven, adding more meltiness than mozzarella alone can provide. Under the scalding heat of my oven at its max, last Sunday's white pizzas became glorious, white-hot pillows cushioning piles of sliced mushrooms, garlic confit, and caramelized onions. Because the bechamel had less liquid than tomatoes, the underbelly of my white pies stayed impressively crisp.

The verdict was clear. Red pies still hold the special spot in our hearts, but bechamel-blanketed white pies now make the permanent roster, too.

If you're not a mushroom fan (weirdo), we also really loved the cauliflower version: chopped cauliflower, bits of green olive (the kind with pimentos, so throwback), lots of garlic confit and caramelized onions, and maybe a chopped anchovy or two.

With that, back to Passover cleaning.

Best Mushroom Pizza
Adapted from Jim Lahey's My Pizza
Makes 2 personal pizzas or 1 large (13 x 18 sheet pan) pizza

This is a pizza with several steps, but it more than rewards your patience.  In truth, the process won't take more than an afternoon; most of the prep work can be completed while the dough rises. We use a white flour dough for most pizzas around here, but these tomato-less pies respond particularly well to a whole wheat crust enriched with a bit of honey.

Dough:
250 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping the dough
275 grams (1 3/4 cups) white whole wheat (or regular whole wheat) flour
1 gram (1/4 teaspoon) active dry yeast
16 grams (2 teaspoons) fine sea salt
350 grams (1 ½ cups) water

Bechamel:
243 grams (1 cup) whole milk
57 grams (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
9 grams (1 heaping tablespoon) all-purpose flour
1 grams (1/8 teaspoon) fine sea salt
3 rasp grates of nutmeg or a pinch of ground nutmeg

Garlic confit:
8 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Caramelized onions:
1 onion, halved and sliced into rings
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toppings:
20 grams (6 tablespoons) grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
100 grams fresh mozzarella, pulled into small clumps
300 grams (10.5 ounces) mixed sliced mushrooms (we used shiitake, cremini, and oyster)
1 recipe garlic confit
1 recipe caramelized onions
1 recipe bechamel

Make dough: Combine flours, salt, and yeast in a medium mixing bowl. Add water and honey, and stir with a fork to combine. (Everyone else uses a wooden spoon, but I don’t get it – everything sticks to wood.) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel, and set aside in a warm, draft-free spot for about 18 hours, until the dough has doubled in volume. This will take less time in a very warm spot and more time in a cold spot.

Lightly flour a work surface and turn dough onto floured surface. Divide in half, and shape each half into a ball, by lightly stretching the four sides of each piece out and back into the center of the ball, one by one, helping build surface tension in the dough. Then shape each piece into a ball, and turn seam-side down onto the work surface. If dough is sticky, dust each with a bit more flour.

Cover with a damp cloth and let rest for at least an hour while you assemble the fillings, or wrap the balls individually in plastic and refrigerate for up to 3 days. If refrigerating, return to room temperature by leaving them out on the counter, covered in a damp cloth, for 2 to 3 hours before needed.

Make bechamel while dough rises: In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat until it foams. Add flour, and stir until flour and butter are fully combined but flour has not started to brown. Add milk in a slow stream, whisking to combine it with the roux. It will start to thicken slightly as it heats up; continue stirring to prevent clumps. When milk is the thickness of heavy cream, add salt and nutmeg, give a good stir, and remove from the heat. It will continue to thicken as it cools. By the time it’s fully cool and ready to go on pie, it will be almost shmearable.

Make garlic confit: In a small saucepan, combine garlic, olive oil, and salt over medium-low heat. Garlic should sizzle lightly; if it looks like it’s starting to brown too quickly, turn down the heat. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until cloves are soft and lightly golden. Set aside to cool.

Make caramelized onions: Peel onions, halve them from pole to pole, and slice into thin half-rings. Pile the onions into a large shallow skillet that has a lid. Turn the heat to medium and add the butter and salt. When the onions start making those wonderful sizzling noises, give the onions a good stir, reduce the heat to low, and cover the pan. After 20 minutes, check the onions. They should have sweated down considerably to the point where they are very soft and possibly turning tan. Cook the onions 5-10 more minutes uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and ensure even cooking. Remove from heat and set aside.

Assemble and bake pizzas: If using a pizza stone, place in whatever part of your oven contains the heat: in my gas oven, the heat comes from the bottom so I put my stone in the bottom third of the oven. Preheat oven as high as it will go (for me, that’s 550 degrees F).

If using a stone, dust your peel with semolina or flour. Take one ball of dough, and gently stretch it, slowly and deliberately, until it is 9-11 inches across. Set the disk onto your peel; working quickly, spoon the béchamel over the surface and spread it evenly, leaving about an inch of the rim untouched. Sprinkle the surface with Parmigiano. Distribute mozzarella clumps, mushroom slices, bits of the garlic confit, and caramelized onions over the surface. Sprinkle a bit more Parmigiano on top.

Use a quick, jerking motion to transfer the dough from peel to stone. Bake 6-8 minutes, until pizza is bubbling and golden brown. Use peel or a very large flat spatula to remove pizza from oven. Slice and serve immediately.

If using a metal sheet pan, drizzle sheet pan with olive oil, transfer the dough onto the pan, and slowly and deliberately spread the dough until it mostly fills the sheet pan. This may take time; if the dough tenses up, let it rest for 10 minutes or so and it will relax and be ready for spreading. Once dough mostly fills the pan, distribute ingredients as described above.

Bake pan pizza for 7-10 minutes, until brown and bubbly. Remove, slice into squares, and serve immediately.

Tuscan Kale and Chickpea Soup

I have a (very cynical) theory that for every 10 vegetarian soup recipes out there, 9 of them had authors who sneaked in some chicken stock when no one was looking. I often read these recipes incredulously: you're telling me your meatless soup is deep and complex, and yet it contains no miso, no tomato paste, no porcini mushrooms, no smoked anchovies - no umami whatsoever. Heck, it doesn't even have much in the way of spices. This all seems mostly impossible.

But as I'm not coming to find, there are magical exceptions to this rule. There are owners of a certain restaurant in Brooklyn by the name of Franny's, which I have love-love-loved for a very long time, who make pretty much everything turn to gold. They are experts at pasta and pizza; masters of crostini and of fritti, those fried bites that start a meal. Well, no surprise: it turns out, they're pros at soup, too.

Making a vegetarian soup taste complex and flavorful absolutely requires attention to detail and process; this soup has steps. But, as usual, I did find a couple of shortcuts that'll make this soup use fewer pots and take less time. That said, as written, this probably isn't an ideal choice for a make-and-eat weeknight supper situation. I made a double recipe last weekend, and it lasted us much of the week. Fortunately, this is a soup that improves over time. I also suspect that it'd freeze beautifully, and I'm making a third batch this, the whole of which I'll be freezing for some very theoretical time down the road when time is more of the essence.

Speaking of said time: lots of you have emailed and commented to check in on preggo and bebe. Thank you so, so much. It's the home stretch around here. The babe is in position and ready to go. We've managed to not find out the sex (though this morning's appointment nearly spoiled that - be careful!), and I'm really glad we kept it under wraps; I think it's changed the nature of our anticipation. I thought this stage would be full of wondering and theorizing about what the kid will be like; instead, since that's a total mystery, I've been thinking a lot more about how we'll be as parents. I'm happy not to know more yet; I'm happy to be patient. (I'm also happy to be enjoying a not-at-all small number of peaceful restaurant meals with the lady and with friends; if only I could log them for later.)

The other good news about this phase, at least for my meat-loving wife, is that I've been clearing out the freezer of space-hoggers like spare ribs. In honor of our anniversary, I stovetop-smoked them for about an hour, then let them melt away in a low oven . The whole process was way easier than it sounds. Tutorials here and here, recipe inspiration here, if you're interested. We served them with some very good BBQ baked beans, which I'll tell you about one of these days.

Thinking more about those ribs, I'm happy to have the dregs of my last batch of this soup in the fridge. It'll make a healthy, filling supper.

Good to counteract those apple cider doughnuts I made this weekend, which I'll tell you about later this week. Till then -

Franny's Kale Chickpea SoupAdapted from Franny's: Simple Seasonal Italian Serves 8

On my shortcuts: I skipped the cheesecloth sachet, of course. Instead, I diced the onion small enough that it disintegrated into the soup; I cut the carrot and celery just in half, for easy removal; and the rosemary sprig was easy enough to find and remove. You're also supposed to put 3 garlic cloves in the sachet, but since garlic is such a prominent flavor in the soup anyway, I didn't see the harm in leaving them in there. I'm pretty sure 2 of the 3 found their way into the blender with the portion that got pureed, and I ended up with one of them in my bowl, all smooth and melty, which was delightful. I also sauteed the rest of the garlic in a pan big enough to accommodate the kale, saving one pan in the process. I'm sure you're wondering whether you can make this with canned chickpeas, and while I'm sure you can, I'm also sure the cooking time helps marry the flavors and textures of this soup. Still, I know time is of the essence. If you try it with canned chickpeas, will you report back?

One more note: this soup is pretty perfect as is, but I did just want to note that it works well with greens other than kale. I haven't tried it with collards and probably wouldn't start there, since they can taste a bit chalky after a long liquidy cook. That said, beet greens, in particular, are fantastic in this soup. So if you have a small bunch of kale and a big pile of greens from those beets, don't hesitate to make this.

And one tiny other thing: 1 cup of olive oil. A lot, yes, but not the 1 1/2 cups originally called for, and also not really that much, at 2 tablespoons per serving. Disagree? Think about the fact that most cookie recipes call for 2 sticks butter. That's a cup right there. I've already cut the amount of olive oil by 1/3 - don't skimp further. If anything, be more generous if you feel so inclined.

2 cups dried chickpeas
1 carrot, peeled and cut in half
1 celery stalk, cleaned and cut in half
1 onion, halved (or diced, if you don't want to fish it out with the carrot and celery; see note above)
11 garlic cloves, peeled
5 strips lemon peel
1 sprig rosemary
1 tablespoon kosher salt, more to taste
3 1/2 quarts water
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided; more for drizzling
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
2 big bunches Tuscan kale or beet greens Freshly cracked black pepper Lemon wedges, for serving
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, for serving

Put the chickpeas in a medium bowl, cover with at least an inch of water, and let soak overnight.

In a large pot, combine carrot, celery, onion, 3 garlic cloves, lemon peel, rosemary, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon salt, and the 3 quarts water. Bring to a boil over high heat,  then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the chickpeas are tender, about 1 hour (more if chickpeas are old). Taste at the end of cooking, and add more salt as needed.

Meanwhile, finely chop or (faster!) crush the remaining 8 garlic cloves. Remove the center ribs from the kale and coarsely chop the leaves (you should have about 16 cups, but if not, no stress). Set up your blender and have the blender canister at the ready.

In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and chili flakes and cook until the garlic is fragrant but not golden, about 1 minute. Transfer to the blender canister (it's okay if some is left in the pan). Immediately add 1/3 of the kale, toss to combine, and cook, tossing occasionally, until tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer cooked kale straight into the blender. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and another 1/3 of the kale, and cook in a similar manner, transferring to the blender when cooked. Repeat with the last 2 tablespoons olive oil and the last batch of kale.

When the chickpeas are cooked, fish out the carrot, celery, rosemary, and onion if not diced. Then scoop 2 cups of them and their liquid into the blender with the kale, and puree until smooth. Add this puree back to the pot with the rest of the chickpeas, and cook over medium-high heat until hot.

Serve with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, a drizzle of olive oil, and lemon wedges on the side.