Waffles: You're doing it wrong

This post is inspired by the Slate.com series called "You're doing it wrong," about recipe revisions.

I found a Belgian-style waffle iron at a yard sale a couple of years ago and started experimenting with recipes. For pancakes on weekends, my family had long loved the Wheat Germ Pancakes recipe in the Colorado Cache Cookbook, which calls for flour and butter and a little leavening with buttermilk and separated eggs, the whites beaten to soft peaks and folded in to make the pancakes light and fluffy. We figured waffles would require a different batter and tried an assortment of recipes, from Cooks' Illustrated, Joy of Cooking, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and a few others. (Can you see where this is going?)

One day, I decided to whip up a batch of our favorite Wheat Germ Pancakes. I plugged in the waffle iron. The waffles turned out airy and crisp, but too airy, without enough substance: there was no there there, in the words of Gertrude Stein. Another recipe fail. About then I found the Slate.com pancakes recipe, which asserted that there is no need to whip the egg whites. The next time I heated up the waffle iron and cooked up a batch of the Wheat Germ Pancakes but this time without separating and beating the egg whites, they were perfect.

Our Favorite Pancake and Waffle Recipe 

This recipe is adapted from the 1978 Colorado Cache Cookbook's recipe for Wheat Germ Pancakes. One of the things we love about this recipe is the ratio of flour to liquid, which is about 1 part flour to 2 parts liquid, the opposite of most pancake recipes. These pancakes are always light and tasty. 

1 cup white wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ (or you can substitute the same quantity of ground flaxseed or a superfood blend such as Nude Food)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda*
1 teaspoon baking powder*
2 cups buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute 1 cup plain lowfat yogurt and 1 cup milk)
2 eggs, beaten
3-4 tablespoons butter, melted


*Cut this quantity in half if you are making these at an altitude of 5,000 feet.

Stir the dry ingredients together in a good-sized bowl. In another bowl or a quart-sized measuring cup, mix the buttermilk (or milk and yogurt) and the two beaten eggs. Stir the liquids into the flour mixture. Stir in the melted butter. Cook on a waffle iron until brown. You can hold them in the oven on a warm plate covered with a sheet of foil until serving.

Variation: Stir some grated cheddar and/or grated apple into the dry ingredients before mixing in the liquid mixture.

Panettone outside the box

In the markets every winter, starting about a month before Christmas, I see the boxes of panettone, the Italian brioche with the candied fruits. Sometimes I buy one. The other night, after I woke up at 4 a.m., my thoughts wandered until I realized I wanted to try making my own panettone. I found a recipe I wanted to try, and went back to sleep. 

In the morning, I read the recipe more closely. It required an ingredient I've never seen called Fiori di Sicilia extract. I hunted around on the internets and decided what I really wanted to do was make this Fiori di Sicilia-inspired syrup (from the Edible Mosaic site) of lemons, sugar, vanilla, and orange flower water. So I did, and it turned out so nicely. It makes a beautiful mixer with some sparkling water and ice, and I'll bet a dash would be lovely in a wine spritzer or anywhere you'd use elderflower liqueur. 

When I made the panettone, I substituted 1/4 cup of this syrup for the 3 tablespoons of sugar and the Fiori di Sicilia extract the original recipe called for. And I tweaked a couple of other things, adjusting for high altitude.

Risë's Party Panettone

Start this the night before you bake by stirring some flour, yeast, and water in a bowl and letting the mixture sit for 12-24 hours at room temperature. 
 
Biga (overnight starter)
3/4 cup (3 1/8 ounces) unbleached, unenriched organic wheat flour (white, not whole wheat)
A pinch of yeast
1/3 cup (2 5/8 ounces) water
Combine the biga ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl, cover, and allow them to rest overnight (12-24 hours).

Dough
All of the biga (above)
2 1/4 cups (9 1/2 ounces) organic wheat flour (not whole wheat)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup (2 ounces) fiori di Sicilia syrup
1 tablespoon water
2 large eggs
1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) butter
Zest of one large orange
1 1/4 teaspoons SAF Gold instant yeast OR 1 1/2 teaspoons rapid-rise yeast*
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) slivered dried apricots
1/2 cup (2 ounces) dried cranberries
1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
*Note: These yeast quantities are adapted for high altitude (5,000 feet). If baking at sea level, add another 1 1/4 teaspoons SAF yeast or another 1 1/2 teaspoons rapid-rise yeast.

Dough: Combine all of the dough ingredients except the fruit and stir them until the dough gathers together. Turn out the dough onto a generously floured board, scrape as much of the sticky dough out of the bowl and onto your dough, and knead the dough until it is soft and smooth. Lightly oil the bowl and put in the dough. Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it's puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk). Gently deflate the dough, and knead in the fruits and zest.

Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a greased 8-inch springform pan (or other straight-sided, tall 1 1/2- to 2-quart pan). Cover the pan and let the dough rise for about 1 hour or until the dough has risen somewhat.

Bake the bread in a preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 375°F and bake an additional 10 minutes; then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the panettone from the oven and cool completely. Slices are excellent toasted.

Adapted from http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/overnight-panettone-recipe

"Easy" boeuf bourgignon

Dang, this was good. It's probably some kind of heresy to put cauliflower in it, but I did and it was delicious.

Sprinkle salt and pepper on 1-1/3 lbs. cubed stew beef, and toss the beef in some flour to coat the cubes.

Brown the beef over medium-high or high heat in bacon fat, and add 2 diced shallots and 1 diced onion.

Once they have browned, pour over the beef and onions/shallots a cup of stock and 3 cups of dry, rich red wine, burgundy or other variety (tonight I used the remains of a two-day-opened bottle of tempranillo and a partial bottle of pinot noir).

Add a bouquet garni: 3 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, 2 whole cloves, and 10 peppercorns, tied in a little cheesecloth.

Add water to cover if needed, and simmer for two hours, or for about 50 minutes in a pressure cooker.

Slice 3/4 lb. white button mushrooms. Chop some carrots (baby carrots or mature ones). Mince 2 cloves garlic, and saute in olive oil on medium-high heat. Add the sliced mushrooms and the chopped carrots, and 1-1/2 teaspoons of thyme, rubbed between your palms. Brown the mushrooms. Take the pan off the heat

Chop a half a head of cauliflower into 1-to-2-inch florets or chunks of stem.

Once the beef in the pressure cooker is tender, add the sauteed mushroom mixture and the chopped cauliflower.

Optionally, whisk a tablespoon or two of beurre manie (equal parts butter and flour, blended into a paste) into a cup or so of the stew liquid. Pour the blended liquid back into the pot and cook for at least five minutes to thicken the stew.

Serve over egg noodles or steamed potatoes, or just eat it by itself.

Recipe: Oatmeal with cranberries

Here's a recipe adapted from a Cook's Illustrated magazine recipe. I am craving this right now. Perhaps I'll make it tomorrow, since it's not a school day and we'll have the 20 minutes it takes to simmer it.

1 cup steel-cut or Scottish-style oats (we recommend Bob's Red Mill Scottish Oats)
1 tablespoon butter
3 cups water
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dried cranberries
Optional: 1/3 cup pecans (toasted for 7 min. at 350 degrees), chopped

Heat the butter in a 2-qt. pot on medium heat, until butter stops foaming. Add the oats. Stir to mix the butter into the oats. Stir every few seconds and cook the oats until they start browning. The mixture will smell like butterscotch.

Add the cinnamon and stir it into the oats to toast it for a few seconds.

Add the three cups of water, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or a whisk to break up any lumps.

Stir in the cup of milk. Stir in the cranberries. After the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to cook the oatmeal at a simmer for 15 minutes.

Add salt to taste and simmer for another five minutes.

Top with brown sugar and toasted pecans if desired.

Randall Grahm must be doing pirouettes of disbelief

In 1985-86, we happened to be geographically linked with a winemaker who worked with a newcomer in the wine world named Randall Grahm, who had bought land a few minutes up the coast, between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, in Bonny Doon. Grahm had planted a lot of French Rhone-style wines and in 1984 released the first Le Cigare Volant. We knew about none of this until our neighbor*, Daniel, the assistant winemaker at Grahm's new winery, Bonny Doon Vineyard, started bringing home wines for us to try. The chardonnays had none of that stingy sugar nor over-oakiness that had made us dubious about the few chardonnays we had tried in our heretofore brief drinking lives. These filled our mouths with butter and sunlight and honey and flowers and pears and herbs.

One day Daniel brought home some Le Cigare Volant, the flying cigar wine, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre. Daniel had shown us by then how to breathe as we tasted, about the different mouthfeel of every wine. Our newly awakened palates and vocabularies discovered plums, berries, cherries, leather, tobacco, smoke, wood, earth. We scraped together some extra money for a case while Daniel worked there, a stretch for us poor college students but worth it.

Our neighbor soon became disillusioned with "working for snobs," as he put it, and in rapid succession he got a degree and a job as a professor of environmental sciences. Meanwhile, Grahm's fame as a winemaker grew, based on the reputation he had built with his "flying cigar wine," as it was affectionately known. Our knowledge of wine varieties also grew as we continued living in the sleepy town of Santa Cruz, near our little gem of a market a few blocks away, Shopper's Corner. The wine buyer at "Shopper's" had a special passion for finding inexpensive gems, and we're talking not Three-Buck Chuck here but three-dollar bottles of Cotes du Rhone, Burgundy, Chardonnay. Pinot Noirs from France and yet another world of Pinots from California. You could get bottles of Ridge Zinfandel for six or seven dollars -- what an education those wines were in how the stresses of heat and time and locale could affect a single variety.

Giving his wines irreverent names was one of the methods Grahm, the driven director of Bonny Doon Vineyard, used to stoke the buzz about himself and his new wine blends. The coinage "Rhone Ranger" told of Grahm's quest to bring Rhone varietals to California's north-central coast. Le Cigare Volant was the first of these, and now having had a case of a 1980s vintage of that wine into the early oughts seems like something worth remembering. The wine called Big House Red was an early and successful attempt at cracking the mass market and has allowed Grahm more time and money for his pursuit of his own synthesis of growing grapes and blending them in new ways.

This morning I scanned the Wednesday liquor-store ad, and no, Le Cigare Volant is not on sale (you can buy a few-year-old vintage for about $35 at our local mart), but wacky names from the list of sale wines were popping out all over the page. I've gotten used to Big Ass Cabernet and Red Bicyclette and Goats do Roam, but here is an import called Mommy's Time Out and a sparkling shiraz (a wine I have been wanting to try very much since I learned of it from an Aussie mate) called Naked on Roller Skates. Methinks the cute-name trend may have exhausted itself. Randall, what do you think?

*We have awfully good luck with neighbors, don't we?!

Choosing to be gluten-free

As someone who believes that things "happen for a reason," I am finding that whether or not my child is sensitive to gluten (or something else), it's been a good experience to try living without wheat. I stopped cutting it out because it seemed like I was the same before and after, and when I tried it after a couple of months of strict, gluten-free eating, nothing seemed to change. So now I'm not going out of my way to avoid it, but I am still baking gluten-free things and trying to rotate new grains and vegetables and starches into our daily diet.

No one likes risotto as much as I do, but polenta works if, like tofu, you season it well and serve it with highly flavorful things (like veggies roasted in olive oil and cheese, and/or a rich marinara sauce), or if you fry it and serve it with something tasty and bright. Quinoa hasn't caught fire in our household, but I still serve it once in awhile anyway.

But now I know more about what is out there. Now we're eating buckwheat and amaranth and coconut flour and teff. We're using tapioca and arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch. Brown rice flour is a good staple, but tends to be bland, dry, and gritty when baked; brown rice flour needs to be mixed with other flours for added flavor and texture -- sweet, nutty sorghum flour is a good addition. (Now I get why people have recipes that call for six, seven, eight, and more kinds of flour.)

What I find missing from the gluten-free living sites I've seen so far is a more systematic discussion about baking and living gluten-free. A couple of organizations are trying to organize gluten-free information on restaurants, and there are lots of ambitious home and professional cooks with great recipes online, many of them on their blogs. But what I don't see is a breakout, for example, of each type of flour, with descriptions of how they behave in cooking and how they taste, with optimum preparation methods suggested for each. Wouldn't that be a great resource? It would be a lot of work. You'd have to test like crazy to get all that data, but wouldn't it be wonderful to look at a table that allowed you to find the best flours when you wanted to make pancakes or cream scones or yeasted bread or pie crust or crackers or hamburger buns yourself? You could take it even farther and test the mixes and products available on the market today.

I would also like to see a more comprehensive information set about gluten-free dining in the forms of cards that diners can present to servers, training for restaurants on gluten-free food preparation, etc. I know you can find this stuff out there, but it's not all in one place. We've had so many experiences when I have wished I could just send someone to one page on a website for more information. Misconceptions abound: "You can eat spelt, right?" "You can just take the bread/bun off." "Just eat the ice cream, not the cone." "No, that peanut sauce doesn't have gluten in it -- just hoisin sauce [which contains soy sauce, which contains wheat]." That last one is a variation on this one: "If there's no wheat flour in it, there's no gluten in it." We have heard all of these ourselves, just in the last four months of cooking and eating out gluten-free, when eating at the homes of friends and families, on playdates at friends' parents' houses, and dining out at restaurants. It would be great to steer people in the right direction. That said, I appreciate absolutely every relative, friend, and waitperson who has tried to work with us during our trial of this diet.

For us, we are no longer convinced gluten is the culprit, since many of the same complaints persist in our daughter. And she had the same experience I did when she had a "gluten challenge" and we tried some white wheat flour a couple of times: no change. I now wonder about the gluten-free/casein-free diet -- our daughter eats so much dairy -- and I wonder about eggs (we'd be sad to lose them -- what a staple they are in our diet).

We don't even know if it really is our diet that is causing our child's tummyaches. We have also theorized that she has a more limited set of perceptions (a classic symptom of sensory integration disorders) of her body's signals than we have; when she says, "My tummy hurts," it could also mean different things: "I have sensation in my tummy," or even: "I have pain somewhere, but I'm thinking about my tummy because I just ate."

But I know we're better off eating this more diverse diet. I feel healthier knowing that I'm eating so many different foods, even though I don't have much direct evidence that my overall health has changed significantly (unless you compare photos of me six years ago and now -- I do think I look healthier).

Best dinner this week: Kale with bacon and balsamic vinegar, black japonica rice, fresh yeasted bread (flours: brown rice, white rice, arrowroot, potato, amaranth, coconut, sorghum, flaxseed meal, and oat flour), tomato and avocado salad. Served with toasted pine nuts, for any or all of the dishes.

Mmmm. Cheese!

I had been through the cheese drawer and found a hunk of Irish Blarney (yes, really), which we had sampled and loved at Whole Foods. My little one was excited at the prospect of a snack of that and we cut some into little sticks, which we followed with some apple slices.

"How come Whole Foods has such good-tasting cheeses, Mama?" the young one asked.

"You're right. They seem to go out of their way to get the best cheeses," I said.

"Yeah. They have all these cheeses that go whoop all around your mouth," she replied happily.

-rk