gettin’ my mojo back

for the entirety of this summer, i have been trying to convince myself and my health that i am on vacation, and that life is normal again. for about a year – since june 2008 – i haven’t had a real break, one where i puttered around the house doing nothing but maintaining the rituals of daily life, and thinking about cooking. and by the rituals of daily life, i mean really mundane things: doing laundry, making my bed, putting away clothes, vaccuming the carpet, cleaning the kitchen counters. every now and then, given the privations of grad school and employment, i need at least a week of doing nothing – waking up whenever, doing whatever.

i expected to get a break this summer, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be. there were trips to lowell for work, a site visit for thesis, training sessions for my teaching job, teaching at the bac, then more work at lowell and an attempt to work on thesis…you get the point. and although these commitments don’t come close to those that i maintain during the school year, they were enough to deprive me of any chance to really get back up to speed and feel like i was motivated to do anything. and i do mean anything – it has taken two and a half months, but i am finally motivated to cook regularly again. i haven’t done very much thesis work in the past two days, even though our first review is in a few weeks, but i have woken up late and cooked a lot, and i feel vastly better right now than i have since that happy time of rejuvenation in june 2008.

and so i have a few recipes here as a reward for reading through this angst-ridden post. i made dinner for roommates tonight: creamed leeks and tomatoes, chicken in milk, and hide bread. we had the brownies for dessert, and then i have a new cookie recipe for you.

the leeks and tomatoes are pretty standard technique, so i won’t include those here – basically, olive oil, saute the leeks, add the tomatoes and a bit of whatever cream or half and half you have on hand. the chicken in milk is a jamie oliver recipe from thekitchn, and it is quite good and fairly easy – wonderfully aromatic, a bit different from a traditional roast chicken. it is a bit cool tonight, so i thought it would be a good night for roast chicken. this is the second time i’ve made this particular chicken, and it was better this time around – i think last time we couldn’t get sage at the supermarket, but this time i put in the whole package, with more garlic. the chicken is steamed and roasted in milk, with lemon zest, sage, and garlic – i think i would add even more lemon zest, because this time around, the sage and milky-cream flavor dominated, with notes of lemon and cinnamon. i think we got the cinnamon right, but it could use 1-2 more lemons. fyi, the lemon zest causes the milk to curdle into a thickish sauce. it tastes better than it sounds… also, once we stripped all of the meat from the bones, i dumped them into a pot of broth that i have been periodically mixing and strengthening with broths and bones from additional chickens. as most of the chicken i have been cooking this summer is asian, it’s flavored with ginger and garlic, and now lemongrass, sage, and cinnamon…i have to say, it smells pretty good now and should be pretty chicken-y.

anyway, the star of the night is the hide bread – in addition to a desire for roast chicken, i chose this particular recipe because it involves plentiful sauce that would soak into the bread. these scone-slash-rolls are named for a person, not because they are in any way close to jerky in texture. they are from a recipe from the big sur bakery, via 101cookbooks, and are essentially very seedy scones that actually taste good. typically, perhaps because i grew up on super-seedy bread, i hate seeded breads, but this one is quite good. and it’s quite good for you, i imagine – it’s very seedy and fiber-y: oat bran, flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, amaranth. it is closer to scones than rolls in technique, as you mix together all the dry ingredients, then stir in the wet until just combined. i made a half-recipe, because some of the comments on 101cookbooks noted that theirs came out like hockey pucks, but we really enjoyed them. they are a bit hard on the outside, and you are supposed to split them and toast them, then slather them with butter. however, if you have good teeth, these would make a wonderful breakfast with a bit of butter and sugar, or jam. if you don’t, well, they soften quite nicely in a sauce, providing a healthy but delicious option for carbs and starches at dinnertime.

and finally, i have a fabulous new cookie recipe for you. it is easiest made in a food processor, but you could probably make do without one. these cookies made me appreciate what a food processor can do for you, because it literally takes five minutes to put them together. i have been wanting to try these earl grey tea cookies for quite some time, since i saw them on thekitchn in september 2008. they’re basically a shortbread cookie with tea in them; i used tea from tea bags as recommended, with fabulous results. these cookies are perfectly crisp, and imbued with great tea flavor. i made two batches – one with earl grey, and one with jasmine. as expected, both taste better the day after they were baked. the jasmine cookies taste more jasmine-y, while the earl grey cookies have mellowed out a bit.

which reminds me – i have one last cookie recipe for you as well – brown-butter shortbread cookies. it seems like i’ve been making quite a lot of shortbread-type cookies these days, and for good reason – they are always crispy, stay crispy for longer, and don’t go stale nearly as fast as chocolate chip cookies. i’ve made these brown-butter cookies a couple times now – they were good the first time, but even better the second. i had made the dough, then as has happened frequently this summer, i didn’t have the energy left to actually make the cookies. i let the dough languish in the fridge for a little over a week before finally baking them, and disbursing them to roommates and family. they went over pretty well, in part due, i think, to a a longer stay in the fridge for the flavors to develop, and also because i let the butter brown for longer than i usually do. i was convinced that i had accidentally burned it, in a fortuitous instance of forgetfulness, but forged ahead anyway.

and without further ado, here are the recipes:

chicken in milk
(adapted from jamie oliver)

1 roasting chicken, about 5 lbs or so
salt and pepper
3T butter
2T olive oil
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 pkg of fresh sage, leaves picked from the stems and torn coarsely
zest of 3-4 lemons
15 cloves of garlic, smashed and skinned (smash them with the flat of a chef’s knife to skin them)
2 1/2c milk

1. preheat oven to 375F. melt the butter and olive oil in a dutch oven and when it’s hot, sear the chicken all over, at least a few minutes each side until you get it nice and browned. use a pair of tongs (or a couple of pairs of tongs) to move the chicken to a plate, then pour off the fat in a ramekin. (the original recipe instructs you to discard the fat, but i think you could easily cook other things with it, so i saved mine.)

2. return the chicken to the dutch oven, breast side up, and scatter the sage, lemon zest, cinnamon stick, and cloves of garlic around it. add the milk, then put the lid on and slide it in the oven. cook for an hour with the lid on, then a half hour with it off (it was getting a bit late for dinner, so instead i did 45 minutes with the lid on, 25 minutes with it off, and it was properly cooked temperature-wise). every now and then, take the lid off and spoon the liquids over the chicken.

3. remove chicken from the oven, and serve immediately. we ate it right out of the dutch oven (ie, carving by each person as they served themselves), but if you are making this for a nice dinner party, or a party where you care more about etiquette, then you could use a nice serving bowl and carve the chicken into it, then spoon all the sauce around it. i wouldn’t recommend serving the sauce in a gravy boat or anything, though.

[serves 4-6]

note: i’m not quite sure how many this recipe will serve. the original recipe serves 4, though i have used a larger chicken, and we have about 2 cups of shredded chicken in leftovers, so it could quite possibly serve 6 people if you really carve the chicken well, or if you are not as hungry as we were!
hide bread (super-seedy scones)
(adapted from big sur bakery)

5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra flour for dusting
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted
2 cups oat bran
1/4 cup sunflower seeds (i used pumpkin seeds, as i don’t like sunflower seeds)
1/2 cup amaranth, quinoa, millet, or poppy seeds (i used amaranth because i have never had it before, but you can use any combo of these…i think think amaranth and poppy seeds would be good – the amaranth was still quite crunchy after baking)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons beer
2 1/2 cups buttermilk, half-and-half, milk, or water (i used half and half…i would not use water in these)

1. preheat oven to 375F. line a baking sheet with parchment, or use a silpat (really, i just used the silpat because i had it on hand, and the batter is very sticky so i wanted to make sure the scones would come off the pan).

2. mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then add the wet. stir with a wooden spoon until a thick, sticky dough/batter forms. plop handfuls of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving at least 2 inches in between; your handfuls will be about 3.5-4″ in diameter, 1.5″ thick. if you don’t do too much shaping, then the cragginess of the dough will form a crunchier top when baked. don’t make them too small – stick to the recommended yield – or you will get hockey pucks that are inedible. these are somewhat denser than the typical scone, but not too heavy.

4. bake for 45 minutes, or until they are golden on top. if your tops are very craggy and not smooth, then they may not look like they are completely golden on top, but make sure you do not overbake. you can eat these either on their own, or as recommended by the original recipe – split, toasted, and slathered with butter. store in an airtight container.

[makes 14 scones, though this recipe is easily halved to make 7]
tea-flavored shortbread cookies

1c flour
1/4c sugar
1/4c confectioners’ sugar
5-6 teabags’ worth Earl Grey (or other) tea leaves
1/4t salt (i was a bit more generous with the salt, which provides a nice counterpoint to the sweet in this cookie)
1t water
1 stick (1/2c) butter

1. preheat oven to 375F. if you are using a food processor, pulse together all of the dry ingredients until the tea leaves are pulverized.

2. add vanilla, water, and butter, and pulse together until a dough forms. the dough will be on the wet side of a shortbread dough. dump the dough out onto a piece of wax or parchment paper, and form it into a log about 2-2.5″ in diameter. wrap the wax paper around it, and chill for 1 hour or overnight.

3. when you’re ready to bake it, slice the log into 1/3″ thick pieces (i got exactly 24 cookies). place on baking sheets, about 15 (3 cookies x 5 cookies) at the most, since the cookies do spread quite a bit. if you chill them longer, they will retain their edges better and not spread quite as much. bake 10-13 minutes, until the edges are just brown. (i baked some until the edges were just brown, and some a bit longer, and the recipe was spot on – bake until the edges are just brown – they will still be crisp.)

4. let cookies cool on the sheets for five minutes so they can firm up, then transfer to a plate to cool completely. store in an airtight container up to about 2 weeks.

[makes 24 cookies]
brown butter shortbread cookies
(adapted from Gourmet via smitten kitchen)

3/4c (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1/2c dark brown sugar, packed
1 1/3c flour
1/4t kosher salt

1. cut the butter into a few pieces and cook in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. stir frequently, scraping the bottom of the pan, and cook the butter until it smells kind of nutty, and the particles that have settled on the bottom turn a medium brown. the particles are the milk solids (you would discard these to make ghee, or clarified butter) and basically they are caramelizing; this is browned butter. you don’t want the particles to get too dark – that means that they’re burned – but neither do you want them to be too light, because the cookies will be less flavorful. the particles should be about the color of hazelnut shells. anyway, once the butter is browned, remove it from the heat and scrape into a small bowl. let cool to room temp, then stick it in the fridge to chill it back into a solid. it should be just firm, and good to go in about an hour.

2. beat together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (do actually use the electric mixer for these cookies). mix in flour and salt at low speed until just combined.

3. transfer dough to a sheet of wax paper or parchment and form into a 12-inch log, 1.5-2″ in diameter. chill, wrapped in wax paper, overnight (alright, if you must have these sooner, chill until firm, 1-2 hours, but these are much better if you let the dough’s flavors meld) or a few days.

4. preheat oven to 350F. slice the dough into 1/4″ thick slices, then place on a baking sheet (lined with foil if you want, or a silpat) about 1.5″ apart – these cookies spread less than the tea cookies did, probably because they were chilled for longer. bake until the surface looks dry and edges are slightly darkened, 10-15 minutes. cool on the pan for 5 minutes so the cookies set up, then transfer to a plate. they will be a bit crumbly in a sandy way, but they will be delicious so it’s ok. store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

[makes 20-30 cookies]