These potato cakes have been a family favorite for years, but our daughter recently reminded me that I hadn’t posted the recipe. I like using ring molds to make individual servings, but it can also be made as one large cake in a skillet.
It’s a recipe that also can be made ahead and reheated - always handy when you are preparing a meal that needs last minute attention. The ingredients: 2 Lbs. Potatoes Chopped (Yukon Gold preferred) 1 Large Onion Chopped (grated in mixer with potatoes) 3 Tbsp. Butter (cubed) Salt mixed with fresh ground pepper Watch the video:
Our Molly has the great good fortune to be taken care of by Dr. Tack at the Black River Veterinary Hospital in Chester. NJ. Dr. Tack and his entire staff provide friendly, professional, compassionate caring at a level I have rarely found. As part of his caring, Dr. Tack publishes a monthly newsletter with lots of information and tips for caring for our pets. Last month, he printed a recipe for peanut butter dog treats. They are now Molly's official favorite treat. Easy to make, with ingredients you probably have on hand, they are wonderful for treats or training rewards!
These lovely mushroom croustades are from a cookbook that is about 55 years old! While many of the other recipes in the book seem outdated, these tartlets have stood the test of time and have remained in my repertoire to this day.
Both the filling and the tart bases can be made ahead and frozen which makes them perfect for impromptu entertaining.
Enjoy! Croustades:
24 slices fresh, thinly sliced white bread 2 tablespoons very soft butter
Filling:
4 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots 1/2 lb. mushrooms, finely chopped 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup heavy cream 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon cayenne 3 tablespoons finely chopped chives 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese to finish. Watch the video
The recipe that follows is about the sixth version of this tart. The first one had too much butter in the pastry so it leaked out all over the place; the second had a filling which was too light so that puffed up and then cracked when it cooled. A third try didn't have enough frangipane. I was on the way to the right crust and the right filling, but the raspberry flavor didn't "pop". The solution was to add a thin layer of raspberry jam on the crust before adding the frangipane filling. Finally, just what I was looking for.
Of course, you can vary the fruit - blueberries work well as do fresh or canned apricot halves. Just be sure to drain and dry canned apricots really well.
Be sure to follow the instructions to press the pastry slight over the top of your tart pan so that it doesn't shrink down the side of the pan.
Any problems, just contact me. (bbusciglio@gmail.com)
Raspberry Frangipane Tart
Sweet Pastry
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 large egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons cold water
Raspberry Almond
1 cup ground almond meal
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
¼ cup raspberry jam
6 oz. fresh raspberries, washed and dried
⅓ cup sliced almonds, more or less to your preference
First, make the pastry. Pulse flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor.. Add butter and pulse until most of mixture resembles coarse meal with small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Beat together yolk, vanilla, lemon juice, and water with a fork and pulse until combined.
Turn out onto a sheet of waxed paper or work surface and gently knead until a dough forms. Form dough into a ball, then flatten into a disk and chill, wrapped in waxed paper, at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
Take the pastry out of the fridge. Roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper until it is about 11 inches in diameter. Line a 9-inch tart tin with the pastry, making sure the edges are higher than the tart tin, as the pastry shrinks while baking. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Place a sheet pan or cookie sheet in the oven and preheat to 375 degrees.
Prick the bottom of the pastry lightly with a fork, line the tart with lightly buttered foil and fill with pie weights (dried beans/rice). Blind bake the tart shell for 15 minutes. Remove the weights and the foil and bake for 5 minutes, until the pastry is cooked but still very pale. Let it cool completely.
For the almond cream, add all ingredients to food processor and process until well combined. Coat the bottom of the cooled tart with the raspberry jam and top with the almond cream, smoothing it out with a small offset spatula. Arrange the raspberries over the top of the almond cream. There is no need to push them down as the almond cream will rise while baking and the raspberries will sink in a little bit. Scatter the sliced almonds over the raspberries.
Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the tart for 35 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. Dust with icing sugar just before serving if you wish.
One of the first times I had dinner at the home of my husband-to-be, his
mother served a cucumber salad with sour cream. I had never heard of
eating sour cream and really couldn't imagine why anyone would want to!
It took quite a while, but eventually I did try it - more out of
politeness than anything else - and I was amazed to find it was
delicious. Today, I wouldn't think of serving steak or roast beef
without this great side dish.
1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced 1/2 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup sour cream
Combine the cucumber, onion and salt. Fold in sour cream, cover and chill for at least an hour. Stir before serving.
Many, many years ago we were on a business trip to San Francisco and had dinner in a wonderful Chinese restaurant. The first course was a salad composed of iceberg lettuce, crisp noodles and chicken with a dressing that was very rich and slightly spicy. I have never had it before (or since), but it was a delicious dish. When we got home, I experimented until I came up with a close approximation of a dish we had enjoyed so much. Here is the recipe and I hope you will like it as much as we do:
Peking Chicken Salad
1 poached chicken breast (recipe follows) 2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce 1 - 1½ cups fried Chinese noodles 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (toast in fry pan until they turn brown and start to pop) 1 or 2 finely julienned scallions
Dressing:
¼ cup duck sauce ¼ cup plum sauce 2 tablespoons Chinese sesame oil 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon chili oil (or to taste)
Poached Chicken Breast:
In a pot just large enough to hold chicken breast, bring to a boil water to cover chicken, add 3-4 slices fresh ginger and 3-4 scallions. Add chicken and let water return to a boil, cover and turn off heat. Let sit for 20 minutes WITHOUT REMOVING COVER. Allow chicken to cool in the water. Remove chicken skin, remove meat from bones and shred.
To serve:
Place shredded lettuce in a wide shallow bowl, add noodles, leaving a rim of lettuce showing; add chicken in center of noodles, leaving a rim of noodles showing. Place julienne scallions on top of chicken and sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over all. Add dressing and toss.
I recently invited some friends for a "proper" Afternoon Tea. I served
the obligatory cucumber sandwiches and smoked salmon sandwiches along
with shrimp salad rolls, scones with butter and raspberry jam, mini
lemon meringue tarts, fresh fruit and Brandy Snaps. I don't think any
of the women there had tasted Brandy Snaps before and they were the hit
of the afternoon. I'm happy to share the recipe with you.
Brandy Snaps
Ingredients:
¼ cup light corn syrup ¼ cup molasses ½ cup butter 1 cup flour ⅔ cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon ground ginger 2 teaspoons brandy
Preheat oven to 300°.
Heat the syrup and molasses to boiling. Remove from heat and add butter.
Combine the flour, sugar and ginger. Add gradually, while stirring to molasses mixture. Mix well. Add brandy.
Drop by half-teaspoonfuls three inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake ten minutes or until large bubbles have subsided.
Remove from oven, loosen one cookie at a time and roll over handle
of a wooden spoon. Slip off carefully. Serve filled with whipped cream.
Variation: Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheets for cookie "baskets".
Use a large cookie sheet and make two at a time. Bake at 325° for 10 to
12 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to set for a moment or two and drape
over inverted custard cups. Let sit until crisp.
Cautions: Do not attempt to make these on a humid day!
Do not fill with cream until an hour or so before you are ready to serve - they will dissolve.
A few weeks ago I was watching an episode of "Restaurant
Impossible" while I was about to start dinner. I had planned to make
chicken breasts - with what else I don't remember! Robert Irvine, the
chef of the show, was teaching the restaurant cook how to make a dish
composed of chicken breasts served over a warm potato salad. I was
amazed to see that he coated the chicken with egg beaten with honey
mustard - this was exactly what I was going to do having discovered some
time ago that the honey mustard adds great flavor to the chicken.
The
dish looked so delicious that I stopped what I was doing, went to the
grocery store to pick up the ingredients I needed and made the recipe
then and there. I adapted it quite a bit from the original which
involved a half gallon of oil to cook the chicken and three or four
skillets. I think this is a dish which you will enjoy too!
Note: In my video demonstration, I used half the ingredients, but the recipe below will serve four.
Honey Dijon Chicken with Warm Potato Salad
Ingredients:
Dressing:
¼ cup white balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons bacon fat, at room temperature (from diced bacon)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
Chicken:
Oil for frying
¼ cup honey mustard
2 eggs, whipped
Four 6-ounce chicken breasts
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 cup Japanese breadcrumbs
Salad:
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup thinly sliced shallots
4 ounces haricot verts, steamed
5 or 6 small red potatoes (about 8 ounces), poached or steamed, medium doneness
¼ cup cooked and diced bacon
¼ cup hot chicken stock
Directions:
In
a medium-sized skillet, cook the diced bacon until browned and crisp.
Remove to paper towels to drain and reserve 2 tablespoons of the
rendered fat. Wipe out the pan with paper towels.
In a food processor, mix the vinegar, bacon fat and mustard. Mix well,
and then slowly drizzle in the oil until well emulsified. Taste and
season. Note: if you don't have a processor, simply whisk the
ingredients together.
In a dish, blend the honey mustard and eggs. Next, sprinkle the breasts
with the salt and pepper. Then toss in the flour, then the egg wash and
finally coat each breast well with the breadcrumbs. Repeat the process
with each breast. Preheat the oil in the skillet until shimmering. Fry
for 3 minutes. Flip and finish for a final 3 minutes. Once the chicken
is cooked, remove from the oil and allow any excess oil to drain on
paper towels. Wipe out the skillet again.
Warm the olive oil in the skillet over medium heat, warm the oil and
then add the shallots, haricot verts and potatoes. Cook, stirring
occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes. Then reduce the heat and keep warm for
dressing.
Add hot chicken stock to dressing and whiz until emulsified. Add to the potato mixture and stir to coat.
Place one quarter of the potato mixture on each of four plates, sprinkle with bacon and top with a chicken breast.
When we lived in Virginia Beach on an inlet from the Chesapeake Bay, we could - and did - catch blue crabs right off our dock. While they made great eating just boiled with Old Bay seasoning, they were even better made into crab cakes. I mean real crab cakes with lots of lump crab meat and very little else. Here's my recipe:
In a medium sized bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, parsley, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper, lemon juice, Tabasco and Old Bay and then fold the crabmeat in gently.
Dip in Panko
.
Form into 6 cakes and fry for about 5 minutes on each side or until nicely browned. You may also make these an hors d'ouevre by using just 2 tablespoons of the mixture per cake.
(Leftovers reheat beautifully and they can be frozen)
Rick and I in our front Williamsburg style garden
Our dock where we caught crabs with a chicken baited line
I have been making pizza at home for years but
have never been totally satisfied with it - particularly the crust. It
never seemed to develop the taste or texture I was looking for. Along
came Arthur Schwartz with his great cookbook “The Southern Italian Table”. His recipe for the dough requires an overnight rise in the
refrigerator and that makes all the difference.
He also uses far less
yeast which I thought might detract from the flavor but that is not the
case. His recipe gives 16 ideas for toppings which, I am sure, will
help inspire you to create your own. One which he did not mention -
probably because it is not authentic - but which I had in a restaurant
in Vermont, is a pear and gorgonzola topping. Different, but delicious!
Another “secret” is to be sure and have your oven preheated to 550º
for at least 30 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza. A pizza
stone helps, but I recently purchased a cast iron “stone” made by
Lodge. I wanted it for the barbecue grill so that I could use an even
higher heat and I have found that it makes an even better crust. It
also works beautifully in the oven at 550º.
For the dough:
1 teaspoon active dry yeast (not fast-rising)
1½ cups warm water (between 100 and 110ºF)
3½ to 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
At
least 30 minutes before mixing the dough, in a minimum 2-cup liquid
measuring cup, sprinkle the yeast on ½ cup of the water. Wait a minute,
then stir with a fork until the yeast is dissolved. Stir in ½ cup of
the flour. Set aside at room temperature and let the mixture increase
to at least double, about 1½ cups.
Combine 3 cups of the flour with the yeast mixture and the remaining 1
cup of warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough
hook. Mix on low speed until the dough just begins to mass together.
Add the salt, and continue to knead the dough with the dough hook until
it looks smooth and the machine struggles a little.
Stop the machine. Gather the dough into a ball and turn it out onto a
lightly floured work surface. Knead the dough for another 5 minutes,
folding and turning it onto itself as demonstrated in the video, adding
just enough flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking.
Lightly oil a medium sized bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn
the dough over so that all surfaces are coated with oil, cover with
plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.
Remove from the
refrigerator. Allow to rise until doubled - this will take up to two
hours, depending on the temperature of your kitchen. After an hour,
turn your oven on to 550º.
Deflate the dough by pressing it down, then divide into 3 parts. Each will make a 10 to 12-inch pizza.
To
form the pizza, flatten a ball of dough into a thick disk. On a
lightly floured surface, rotating the disk as you go, flatten the center
of the pizza with your fingertips or the heel of your hand. When a
ridge of dough starts appearing on the perimeter of the disk, lift the
dough up with both hands, and holding onto the ridge, let gravity and
the weight of the dough stretch the circle. Keep turning the dough to
get a relatively even 10 to 12-inch circle. Keep pulling the ridge
slightly so the circle gets larger. Be careful not to make the center
too thin or the ridge more than a ½-inch deep. Alternatively, you can
use a rolling pin.
Spread the formed pizza dough onto a paddle lightly
dusted with cornmeal. If you don’t have a pizza stone, place the formed
dough on a lightly floured cookie sheet.
Top as desired and bake for 8 to 10 minutes depending on your oven and the topping and how well baked you like pizza.
Toppings:
Pizza
Margherita: Scatter thinly sliced and well-drained tomato slices or
crushed tomatoes sparingly over the dough, top with a few slices of
fresh mozzarella and some fresh basil.
Potato, Onion and Rosemary
Potato, Onion and Rosemary: Arrange paper-thin slices of precooked
potato over the raw dough. Dress with salt, rosemary leaves, and few
rings of raw onion and drizzle with olive oil.
Pizza Marinara:
Spread with ¼ cup of marinara sauce, sprinkle with some dried oregano,
hot pepper flakes (if desired) and top with shredded mozzarella cheese -
pepperoni, Italian sausage and anchovies all optional!
WATCH THE VIDEO
Note: Dough makes 3 10-12 inch pizzas. You can freeze them.
Video Comment:
Great recipes and presentation as usual Betty. I also did not know that letting the pizza dough sit overnight would enhance the flavor. I was so glad to see that you had uploaded another video. Your teaching techniques are great. Thanks for the info on Pet Finder. Annie is a doll!
auntnancy777
There are a number of recipes where the less you do the better the dish. Lobster rolls and crab cakes come to mind immediately. What you want is the taste of the main ingredient without a lot of other flavors vying for attention. Linguini with clam sauce is another such dish - not only does it benefit from not being fussed with, but by the time the pasta is cooked, dinner is three minutes from the table!
Ingredients:
6 ounces linguini
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 plump garlic clove, grated
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
¼ cup white wine
2 dozen littleneck clams
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Put the clams in a large container, cover with cold water and allow to sit for 20 to 30 minutes. This will allow them to disgorge any sand. Scrub the clams thoroughly and set aside.
Put 4 quarts of water on to boil in a large pot. When the water comes to a boil, season lightly with salt, add the pasta and cook for two minutes less than the recommended time. Drain the pasta, reserving ¼ cup of the cooking water.
While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, just until fragrant. Add the pepper flakes and cook for a moment or two more. Add the wine and clams and turn the heat to high. Cover the skillet and cook until the clams open - about 5 minutes. Use tongs to transfer opened clams to a bowl. Discard any clams that do not open.
Add the reserved pasta water to the skillet, bring to a boil and add pasta to pan. Cook over high heat, turning with tongs until pasta is fully cooked. Add the clams and any accumulated juices to the pan and toss with the parsley to combine.
Transfer to warmed serving dishes.
WATCH THE VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
COMMENTS:
annette brent
I am cooking this tonight. Thank you for a great video - well-made and demonstrated.
This is our favorite Caesar Salad dressing. Perhaps not entirely authentic, but it works for us!
1 egg
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon anchovy paste, or 3-4 anchovy fillets
1 clove garlic, grated
4 or 5 drops fresh lemon juice
4 or 5 drops Worcestershire Sauce
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano plus a few shards grated
Freshly ground black pepper
Garlic Croutons
Place all ingredients except olive oil and cheese in a mini-processor and blend for a few seconds. Add the olive oil and blend to combine.
Toss with chopped Romaine Lettuce. Add grated cheese and toss. Add croutons and freshly ground black pepper and toss. Top with shards of Parmigiano. Enjoy!
