Pickled Cauliflower

I absolutely love sour things. I've been known to suck on a lemon slice once in a while, just for kicks (though my dentist scolded me for doing it, so I reluctantly put the habit to rest). When it comes to pickles, I'm a full-sour kinda gal. None of that dill or bread-n-butter stuff; I like'em super super sour. I'm into cucumber pickles, but I can't say that they're my favorite -- not by a long shot. No, my absolute favorite pickle is a pickled green tomato, especially if it's from Guss' Pickles on the Lower East Side. My first time at Guss' was on an 8th grade class trip, when we stopped there very briefly on our way back from grabbing knishes, bialys, deli, and other LES specialties. I remember watching friends get themselves just one pickle, or two. When I looked deep into the plastic tub in front of me and saw green tomato quarters, bobbing up and down in the brine, I knew that's what I had to have. Sadly, Guss didn't sell the tomatoes by the single back then -- only by the pound. Obviously, I bought myself a pound of pickled green tomatoes. Reluctant to waste, I ate them all. Boy were they good.

Not to dismiss cukes, but compared to the tomatoes and other exotic pickled things, they're kind of ordinary. I can promise you that this cauliflower recipe is anything but. I originally published this recipe in an article I did for My Jewish Learning on Israeli Independence Day, but these sour, cardamom-spiked florets are great year-round.

Before I send you off with this recipe, I want to just make note of a couple housekeeping items: first, I finally figured out how to set up comment threads, so now we can all respond to each other's comments, which is very exciting for me, since I've been wondering how to do it for almost two years.

Second, the link to my current coveted cookbook, Bittersweet, was apparently taking everyone to my last coveted cookbook, A Platter of Figs. That's a great cookbook -- but so is Bittersweet, so now the link works.

Lastly, can you hang in there for a weekend? I'm away for a couple days, but I'll be back Sunday with more delicious things to make and eat...

Pickled Cauliflower

update: thanks to reader Rachel who pointed out that the recipe should read 3 TEASPOONS salt and not 3 Tablespoons. Egad! Sorry, Rachel! 3 tsp. coriander seeds 1 tsp. turmeric ½ tsp. white mustard seeds ½ tsp. cumin seeds ½ tsp. celery seeds, optional 3 bay leaves Pinch cayenne pepper, optional 1 head cauliflower, washed and separated into florets 1 large carrot, sliced into thick chunks ½ a small yellow onion, sliced into half-moons 1 ½ cups white wine or plain white vinegar 3 tbsp. sugar 3 tsp. kosher salt

Bring a 2-quart saucepan of salted water to a boil. Boil the cauliflower and carrots for 3 minutes; drain and transfer to a large bowl. Add the onion and stir to combine. In a large sealable container (canning jars will work, but are not required if you plan to eat the salad soon and store in the fridge), add half the total amount of each spice (not including the sugar and salt). If dividing the salad among several jars, divide half the total amount of each spice among the jars, saving the other half to top the vegetables. Add the vegetables into the container(s), leaving about ¾ " of space at the top of each container. In a 4-quart saucepan, bring 2 cups water and all the sugar and salt to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally until fully dissolved. Add vinegar and stir to combine.

Pour the vinegar solution into the container(s), leaving ½” of space below each rim. Close or seal container(s) and transfer to the refrigerator. Allow to marinate at least 24 hours before serving; the longer you wait, the better.

Cherry Almond Biscotti

Two wrist-slaps for me: I made these so long ago, I can't even remember when at this point. And I was oh-so-sure I blogged about them. But you know what? I didn't. I realized this yesterday, when I was poking around a great blog I recently discovered (which, in coincidence of coincidences, belongs to an acquaintance of mine from college), and came across a post about biscotti that's so good, it begs not to be dipped in chocolate. "I make those, too!" I thought, at which point I started poking around my own little blog for any mention of what are, without a doubt, my favorite biscotti ever. Nothing.

My goldfish-memory aside, I'll now remedy that situation. These biscotti are truly the best I've ever made. They've got a healthy handful of dried cherries, chopped home-toasted almonds, and just the right amounts of cinnamon and sugar to make them subtly sweet and spicy, not overly so. You know what else? They're mighty good for you, in the not-bad-for-you kind of way.

I developed my ideal recipe by starting with some basic recipes from a go-to cookbook on my shelf, The New Best Recipe, and consulting the cookbook's advice on how different proportions of egg yolk and butter affect the final product. I like my biscotti dry, crisp, and so crunchy they could (almost) crack a tooth, so I use only egg whites and no butter. If you prefer them less crunchy, more cakey, or more cookie-like, see the note at the beginning of my recipe.

As far as flavorings and add-ins, almost anything goes. TNBR offers orange-almond, lemon-anise, and cinnamon-spice as options, but any dried fruit, nut, seed, spice, or extract would be lovely.

Cherry Almond Biscotti adapted from The New Best Recipe

As I mentioned above, I used 3 egg whites and no butter to produce a very crunchy cookie. For slightly less crunchy biscotti, use 2 eggs instead. For a more cookie-like texture, use 2 eggs and 4 Tbsp. butter. For cakier biscotti, use 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks, an extra 1/4 cup of flour, and 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda.

2 cups flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. salt 1 cup sugar 3 large egg whites 1/2 tsp. vanilla 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 tsp. nutmeg 1 Tbsp. zest from an orange or lemon 3/4 cup whole almonds with skins, toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped 3/4 cup cherries, raisins, or currants

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder (and soda if using), and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.

Whisk the sugar, zest and eggs (whatever part of them you're using) in a large bowl until light yellow. Add in vanilla. Sprinkle dry ingredients over egg mixture and fold until just combined. Add in almonds and cherries, and fold until just incorporated.

Halve the dough and turn both portions onto the baking sheet. Using floured hands, quickly stretch each portion of the dough into a rough 13 by 2-inch loaf. Place the loaves about 3 inches apart on baking sheet and bake until golden and just beginning to crack, about 35 minutes, turning sheet halfway through baking. Remove from oven, transfer loaves to cutting board using large spatula, and turn oven down to 325. Cut loaves on a diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place about 1/2 an inch apart on baking sheet and return to the oven. Bake until golden all over, about 10 minutes, turning cookies over halfway through. Cool on a wire rack. Biscotti will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 month.

Perfect Pound Cake

The spring season is upon us, and we've got the rainfall to prove it! I wanted to go with something clean and fresh-looking for the spring blog design, with bright colors and lots of white space. So clear that cache and check out NDP's new layout -- I hope you like it!

We went to synagogue every week when I was a kid. After services, the congregation would flood into the social hall for "kiddush" -- meaning the prayer over the wine, but also the term used to describe the nibble-and-schmoozefest that occurs after prayers. The "kiddush ladies" would have set up long tables lined with silver trays full of herring (for the old men) and sweets (for the rest of us), and people would just go nuts. All the kids (including me) would wriggle our way in between the long lines of adults to score goodies before they were all snatched up, and like good children we'd compare plates to see who had accumulated the largest stash of junk food.

At a certain age, the game got old, as I realized that the goodies served at kiddush were actually really gross. The cookies were soft and crumbly, the chocolate was all non-dairy and really yuck, and the pound cake -- don't even get me started on the pound cake -- was truly terrible. Soft and mushy, but somehow still totally dry and bland-tasting, it was an affront to everything a pound cake should be. It's fair to say that kiddush ruined my appetite for pound cake, and even now, I struggle to get excited about it.

That is, I struggled to get excited about it, until I encountered Alice Medrich. As you might know from past posts, I've never made a recipe from Alice Medrich that wasn't absolutely, positively perfect. Her Pure Dessert is by far my favorite dessert cookbook, and I'm on my way to making every recipe contained therein. A while back, I noticed a pound cake recipe in Pure Dessert. The recipe is for olive oil pound cake, and calls for no butter at all. Seeing as Medrich is not shy with the butter -- not shy at all -- I assumed she must know something about olive oil in pound cake that I had yet to discover.

Oh, how right I was -- and by that, I mean how right she was -- about the olive oil. It lends the pound cake a moist, slightly dense but even crumb that's really just perfect. Its lower smoking point makes a super crispy crust. And its flavor, especially if you use a high-quality olive oil, is a lovely contrast to the cake's sweetness. I never thought I'd say this, but I loved this pound cake. Like, a lot. Like, so much that I made it twice in one week.

Well, almost. The first round was exactly as the recipe dictated. But the second time I made it slightly differently. (Backstory alert...) See, a couple weeks ago, when I catered that surprise birthday party for Mandy, I went out on a very skinny, brittle limb and made these candied-kumquat-and-olive appetizers that I read about on Alinea at Home that were totally wild-sounding and, oh my goodness, utterly delicious (who knew I even liked kumquats, for serious?). Inspired by the success of something so off-the-beaten-path and unassuming, I made another batch of candied kumquats, you know, just to have. The moment I stuck them in the fridge, it dawned on me that I'd no idea how or where to use them. I could envision a meat dish with them as a condiment or complementary ingredient, but I rarely make meat. I thing they're too strong to just serve over cake or ice cream (though the syrup over vanilla ice cream would be totally divine, come to think of it). So I turned to my new favorite source of advice -- twitter. (Are you on twitter? If so, you can follow my kitchen adventures and, um, other fun things.) Sure enough, that did it. The wonderfulPim chimed in with instructions that were under my nose the whole time: stick some into my favorite pound cake recipe (see where I'm going?) and brush the syrup over the top while the cake is still warm. Bingo.

I did just that, using Alice Medrich's tried-and-truly-wonderful pound cake recipe as a base. Except that my sherry ran out while making the first go-round, so this time I used cointreau (I'd have used triple sec but didn't have any on hand), which, with the kumquats and syrup, made an excellent pair. I tell you, this pound cake is a cinch to make (no butter=no creaming necessary), relatively good for you (I said relatively, didn't I?) and simply perfect in its simplicity. I actually served round two last Sunday morning with cowgirl creamery butter, pear-pecorino salad, and frittata, and as D said, it made for a somewhat unconventional but plenty delicious brunch.

What of the first picture in this post, the slice of cake with a dollop of chocolate ganache? Well, the lovely Lara of Cook and Eat and Still Life With... has launched a Flickr photography group (check Lara's websites for details), and in an attempt to kick it up a notch, I've joined. First challenge? Bread and chocolate. Easy said as done -- and by the way, kumquats and chocolate are a match made in heaven.

Olive Oil Pound Cake from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert

3 cups (13.5 oz) all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt 2 cups sugar 1 cup flavorful extra virgin olive oil 2 tsp grated orange zest (from 1 medium orange) 5 large cold eggs 1 cup medium (amontillado) sherry

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven tot 350 °F. Grease and flour the pans. (Or, if you prefer, line the bottom and sides of the loaf pans with parchment.) Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt thoroughly in a large bowl and sift together. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer (with the whisk attachment if you have one), beat the sugar, oil, and orange zest on high speed until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; continue to beat until the mixture is thick and pale, 3 to 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and add half of the sherry. Beat just until blended. Repeat with another third of the flour, followed by the remaining sherry, and then the remaining flour. (If desired, now would be the time to incorporate any add-ins, including, if you're feeling adventurous, candied kumquats.) Scrape the batter into the pan(s). Bake until the cake tester comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes for either the tube pan or the loaves. Cool the cake in the pan(s) on a rack for about 15 minutes before unmolding. Smaller pans, 30-35 minutes. If using a tube pan, slide a skewer around the tube. If the sides of the pan are straight, slide a thin knife or spatula around the sides to release the cake (unless lined with paper). If using a Bundt or other decorative pan, tap one side of the pan against the counter to release the cake, then tap the other side. Invert the cake onto a rack. Turn the preferred side up before cooling the cake completely. Wrapped airtight, the cake keeps well at room temperature for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.

Cocoa Pear Crisps

It's not every day that a half-eaten fruit turns into something truly out-of-this-world. I suppose I should thank the odd confluence of events that brought about these treasures: one, I bought a mandoline last week. After reading oodles of reviews about the best mandolines on the market, I learned that the two cheapest models (the Benriner and the OXO) are actually the best. My waffling back and forth about whether the 75 bucks was worth it was for nothing: I threw restraint out the window and got my new toy guilt-free. That's one.

Two, Sarina and Robbie had iron chef night this weekend. Each of us picked a course, they revealed the secret ingredient, and we had a couple hours to make a dish featuring that ingredient and bring it over for show and tell. Is it screamingly obvious that there's nothing I'd rather do on Saturday night than play iron chef? I was thrilled. And the secret ingredient was cocoa. Awesome.

Three, iron chef awesomeness notwithstanding, my fridge was pretty empty this weekend. Having come down with an ugly cold last week, I didn't do much cooking at all -- and this weekend, we were off the hook again, so my supply was limited, which meant I needed to get pretty creative for the competition.

Four, I took a sliced pear to work, and had only eaten half of it -- so I had three and a half pears, the half of which was desperately in need of being used. After poking around in vain on Martha and Epicurious for some good pear recipes, I found one for pear chips. They were meant to be sliced paper-thin, sprinkled with a ginger-cinnamon-sugar mixture, and baked/dried in a very low oven until golden and crispy. What would happen, I wonder, if I added some cocoa to the mix? I'll tell you what -- pure magic.

Truth be told, I went cocoa-happy. I wanted the chocolate flavor to be assertive, despite its supporting role. I added 2 Tbsp of it, and I'm glad I did. Pears and cocoa get along marvelously, and the final product was tangy and spicy and a bit rich and bitter from the cocoa, not to mention perfectly crisp and crunchy. Is your mouth watering, too?

I should mention that I also added galangal, a lovely spice I got from Penzeys earlier this year. It's similar to ginger, prominent in Thai cuisine, and has spicy notes but is also an assertively fruity flavor. It's truly something special. If you have it, definitely use it here. If you've got a mandoline, you MUST try this recipe. If not, get yourself to amazon and have a mandoline for the price of dinner tonight. It's kinda totally worth it.

Cocoa Pear Crisps adapted from Epicurious

1 tablespoon sugar 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger 1/4 teaspoon galangal, optional 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 2 tablespoons cocoa 20 paper-thin pear slices (from 1 pear)

Preheat oven to 275°F. Mix sugar and spices in small bowl. Place pear slices on rack set over baking sheet. Alternatively, place slices on silpat-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with spiced sugar. Bake until almost dry, about 1 hour. I flip the slices half way through to ensure even baking. Cool on rack or sheet. Store airtight up to 2 days.