White Asparagus – Spargel – The Queen of Vegetables

The peeling

Making the Hollandaise

Straight out of the steamer

Who could resist?

Spargel truly is vegetable royalty, for any number of reasons.  First of all, unlike it’s tasty, green brothers and sisters, white asparagus is far more rare.  It also has a short growing season, and requires more attention in the growing and the cooking.

I could go on and on about asparagus as a member of the lily family.  White asparagus ‘mounded’ with dirt to prevent sunlight from forming chlorophyll in the plant, preventing them from turning them green, a practice dating to the 1600s, etc.

Time to forego the history and get to the cooking and eating.  For the cooking, I left it to the sensational cook I mentioned with almost worshipful reverence in my last post.  She makes the difficult look easy and the easy look effortless, all without a strand of her locks out of place, and nary a wrinkle in her tasteful attire.  Oh, be still my heart and listen to my stomach.

White asparagus requires two things that green asparagus does not, cutting and peeling.  The cutting is a simple matter of slicing about a half inch off the bottom of the stalk end.  After that, use a vegetable peeler to remove the tough, outer stalk. (see photo).  If you do not remove all of the outer stalk, revealing the soft core, you not only get un-chewable cattle feed, but also a bitter taste that goes down well only if you’re starving or drunk.  But, remove that ‘husk’ and you have a delicate delight for the taste buds.

One additional hint: If you’re not going to cook the asparagus right away, before peeling, wrap it in a damp tea towel and place the bundle in the refrig.

Cooking the Asparagus

About a pound of white asparagus (spargel) per person

An asparagus pot – don’t have one?  Steam the stalks lying down.

Put the asparagus in the pot; add enough water to cover about half way up the stalks.

Add a teaspoon of salt and a half-teaspoon of sugar.

Boil for about 12-15 minutes, or until the stalks are tender, but not mushy.

Remove from the cooking water and place on a plate.

While the asparagus is cooking, make the Hollandaise Sauce.

 Hollandaise Sauce

1 stick of butter, melted

3 egg yolks

3 Tablespoons dry white wine

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon of salt (this will give a slightly salty taste, but will stand up better to the almost non-salted asparagus)

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Off heat, whisk the egg yolks in the top of a double boiler, or in a stainless bowl that you will place over a pot of boiling water.  Add the wine, salt, and sugar, and continue to whisk.  Place the mixture over boiling water and continue to whisk.  If you stop whisking, even for seconds, you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.  As the mixture cooks, it will thicken.  When it’s thick enough to coat a spoon very well, it’s done.  Remove it from the heat and whisk in the melted butter, a little at a time.  Add the fresh lemon juice and more salt, if needed.  Whisk again and pour the Hollandaise Sauce in a gravy boat for serving.

Serving suggestions:

Potatoes- peeled and boiled in salted water.  Flecked with finely chopped parsley.

Several varieties of ham, all thinly sliced.

Melted butter, as an additional topping for the asparagus.

A light, but dry white wine.

Dessert

Simple.  Elegant.  Colorful.

Three layers:  sweetened yogurt on the bottom, a purée of fresh strawberries with a touch of sugar for the second, whipped cream, mixed with a bit of yogurt on top.  Sprinkle the top layer with nuts and seeds.

As an ardent cook myself, I find something very special in having someone cook for me.  Maybe it’s because I realize the planning, time, and effort it takes.  It’s such a courtesy.  Or, maybe it just because I’m a man and besides wine, women, and naps, eating is what I like best.

Apple Pie - the way Mom never made it

Apples and spices and light brown sugar

Crust painted with egg white

The Result

Ready for a fork and a cup of coffee

Do I dare blog a recipe for apple pie? Have I lost my mind?  Yes to the first.  Long ago to the second.

Mom’s apple pie had a syrupy feel to it.  You lifted your fork and some of it slid onto the starched tablecloth.  Heavy in sugar.  Ever so slight taste of apples.  Of course, memory fades, so there may not have been any taste of apples.  Matter of fact, I seem to remember a pie called mock apple pie made with Ritz crackers.

I’m here to change all that.  I have a recipe that is environmentally friendly, meaning no fossil fuel was harmed and no slicing and dicing of the atmosphere, other than your heavy breathing, which of course wheezes out carbon dioxide like bad science project.  We need to do something about that and today I’m promoting a “Day Without Breathing.”  If the over 3 billion humans would just go one day without drawing a breath, we could all race our Ferraris around the countryside and still shorten our carbon footprint from 10 1/2 wide to 6 narrow.  Now, I know some of you are incredibly shortsighted and selfish and will cheat and take a breath.  Others will poo-poo the idea simply because plants need CO2 to breathe, hence the expression GREENHOUSE GASES!  I say, a plague on both your greenhouses.  You either want to do something about the environment, or you want all life as we know it to cease, or both.

What’s all that got to do with apples and apple pie?  Did you not pick up the part I previously mentioned about this apple pie being ENIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY?

I don’t plan to explain that, anymore than the EPA explains the word ‘organic.’

“Hank, you want some organic apples?”

“No, Fred, I’ll stick with these inorganic ones made from hand carved marble.”

“I noticed your teeth were shiny…and thin.”

What I'm trying to explain is that we eat too much sugar.  How do I know this?  I am told by very knowledgeable people, whose names I cannot divulge, but whose hair is stiffened by the same shellac I use to finish furniture and whose faces appear regularly on TV.

Also, I like the taste of apples more than I like the taste of sugar.

Deep Dish, Environmentally Friendly Apple Pie

The Crust:

1 1/4 Cups whole-wheat flour

1 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

4 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/4 Cup vanilla yogurt

3 Tbsp vegetable oil (I use extra virgin olive oil, although I have never actually met an extra virgin anything)

4-8 Tbsp ice water

I use a food processor, but the crust may also be mixed by hand.  Mix the dry ingredients.  Add the butter and rub it in or lightly mix it in your processor.  Combine the yogurt and oil and mix it in.  Add the first 4 tablespoons of ice water to form a crumbly dough.  If it’s too crumbly, add more tablespoons of ice water until the dough clings together, but isn’t wet.  Divide the dough in half, form into two large hamburger sized patties, cover each with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for an hour and a half or more.

The Filling:

6 Granny Smith or 8 Macintosh apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

2/3 Cup packed light brown sugar

2 Tbsp lime juice (or substitute lemon juice)

1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Pinch of ground allspice

Pinch of salt

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 egg white, beaten with 1 tsp sugar (for brushing the crust)

Combine apples, brown sugar, lime juice, salt, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon in a Dutch oven.  Mix well and cook over medium heat until the apples are soft and some of their juice has evaporated.  About 10 minutes.  Remove from heat, stir in the 2 tbsp of flour and allow to cool at least 30 minutes.

Puttin’ it all together:

Pre-heat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC)

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow it to come to near room temperature.  Roll out the two crusts, either in rounds or rectangles, depending on which shape pan you’re using.  Line your pan with the first crust, leaving an excess around the sides.

Add the filling and place the second crust over it. Roll or mash the edges of the top and bottom crust together and flute it attractively. 

Paint the crust with the egg white-sugar mixture.  The crust should be glistening, but not pooled with egg white.

Cut steam holes in the crust in a decorative pattern.

Bake in the lowest rack of your oven for 20 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 375ºF (190ºCº) and continue to bake another 25 minutes.

After removing it from the oven, allow the pie to rest for an hour and a half.

The result is going to be a crispy crust apple pie that has a strong apple flavor and only a slight sweetness.  Want it sweeter?  You can always serve it with a dollop of ice cream.

Now, to save the earth, let’s all take a deep breath and hold it all day…well, except for when you’re downing your second piece of environmentally friendly apple pie.

Strawberry Shortcake, minus the shortcake

Whip it!  Whip it good!

Whip whites to stiff peaks

The completed cake.  Turn out on a rack to cool.

Now it's the strawberries turn.

What the heck is shortcake anyway?  Am I the only one who wants to know?  Remember all those biscuits and scones I wrote about in other titillating blog entries?  Any baked good made with shortening, including butter, is a ‘short bread.’

There’s nothing wrong with short bread.  Eat a lot of them myself, but for strawberries and cream, nothing beats sponge cake.  Rather limiting?  Not if you pass up the commercially made, chemically enhanced, never rot in a hundred years, lining the supermarket shelves junk and make your own.

The first thing you’re going to do is look at the recipe I so thoughtfully provided and say to yourself….WAAAY too hard.  Wait a sec!  If it’s hard to make, I don’t make it!  Yes, my sponge cake takes a trivial amount of time longer than ripping open a cellophane wrapper and tossing some sponge gunk on a plate.  Tastes a hellofa lot better, too.  The question you have to ask yourself, punk, is:  Are you worth it?  Well, are you?

Rule one in cooking: Gather your family (or other freeloaders) in your kitchen.  Rule two:  open a bottle of delightful wine.  After that, cooking becomes a pleasure, followed by a wonderful meal, followed by unbridled ….wait a sec, that’s with your loved ones, not your family.  Common error.

Sponge Cake or Biscuit de Savoie

7 eggs, separated (no, not by size, color, or national origin – yolks and whites, fool!)

1 1/4 Cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 Cups sifted all-purpose flour

Soft, unsalted butter for cake pans (or spray cooking oil) + All-purpose flour for cake pans

Two 9 inch cake pans.  I use rectangular cake pans, but round ones are fine.

Set the oven to 350 ºF or 175 ºC

Cut out pieces of parchment to line the bottoms of the cake pans.  Brush the parchment with butter (or spray with oil) and put them in the pans.  Dust the pans with flour and shake out the excess.

Mix the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture is pale yellow.  I use an electric mixer.  Combine the flour with the yolk mixture to make a batter.

Beat the egg white until they form stiff peaks.  Hint:  if there is even one speck of yolk in the egg white, they will not beat to stiff peaks.

Fold a third of the beaten egg whites into the yolk/flour mixture.   When they’re combined, fold in the remainder of the fluffy egg whites.

Divide the batter between the two pans and bake in the center of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Turn the cakes out on a rack to cool.

Meanwhile, thinly slice your strawberries, put them in a bowl and mix with a spoonful or two of sugar.  I save a whole strawberry to decorate the top of each serving.

Whip the cream until it is thick.  Add a scant tablespoon of sugar and mix well.  Hint:  if you add the sugar first, the cream will not whip properly.

I think you can take it from here.  If not, you were correct not to attempt a sponge cake.  Confine your meager talents to peanut butter and saltines, or crunch your way through an uncooked package of ramen.

No Stir, That's My Cobbler

Just pour the batter into the butter, then add the blueberries.

Cobblers, laced with fruit, and crusty with risen dough, are some of my favorite desserts. Among these, blueberry cobbler sits at the top.  Sweet and bursting with plump berries…, my taste buds are doing back flips just thinking about it.

A little bit about blueberries.  The blueberry bush is a native-American plant.  Didn’t reach Europe until the 1930’s.  But now it seems, blueberries are noted for desserts and jams all over the globe.  German grocery shelves are filled with a selection of blueberry jams.  Also, the health industry lauds blueberries for their dietary benefits.  I’ll leave more of that to you and Google.

Most U.S. commercially grown blueberries come from Maine, but even when I lived in the southern U.S., there were pick-your-own blueberry farms.  Great fun and far less expensive than buying them in a store.  Our family used to pick enough to freeze bags of them, which I found out, doesn’t hurt the color, flavor, or round plumpness.

Let’s get to the recipe, which is soooooo simple, you’re going to have to control your urge to do more.  Read the whole recipe, including the notes, to ensure you get the dessert that will have your loved ones, or even your family raving for more.

One note of caution:  Make substitutions at your own risk.  If you throw together a gluten-free, artificially sweetened, non-butter cobbler, you’re on your own in a nasty and brutish culinary wilderness.  And, no one, not even your now-disgusted friends, are going to save you.

Blueberry Cobbler

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC)

1 stick butter (114 gm)

1 Cup flour  (128 gm)

1 Cup sugar (200 gm)

2 teaspoons baking powder  (approx 11 gm)

1/2 teaspoon salt (3 gm)

1 Cup milk (.25 liters)

2 1/2 Cups fresh blueberries, or one 12 oz package of frozen blueberries (see baking note below) mixed with 1/4 cup sugar

Melt the butter in a medium sized, deep-sided baking dish that holds at least 6-8 Cups.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.  Add the milk  to the dry ingredients and mix well to make a mildly thick, but liquid batter.

Pour the batter into the baking dish containing the melted butter.  DO NOT STIR, just pour it in. 

Pour in the sugared blueberries on top of the batter.  DO NOT STIR.

Bake at 350ºF (180ºC) for 1 hour.  Crust will rise to the top as the cobbler bakes.

Voilà!

Baking Notes:  1) If you are using frozen blueberries, increase the baking time to 1 hour and 15 minutes.  2) This is a very sweet and juicy dessert.  If you want it less sweet, do not mix sugar with the berries.  If you want it more cake-like, mix the batter using 3/4 cup of milk.

Besides the taste, why is this one of my favorite desserts to serve to guests?  You can put it together in a flash (before you serve the main course) and go back to your guests while it bakes.  Using only two mixing bowls and one stirring spoon (only for the batter!) it’s a very quick cleanup.  I often serve it with vanilla ice cream, for a hot/cold combination that’s a wonderful dessert choice year around.

Apple Cake from the Lone Star State

Ready for coffee or a big glass of milk

Dough is stiffer than you're used to

Heaven in a bunt pan

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for healthy eating, as long as its done in moderation.  But, sometimes ya just gotta push those lily-livered, calorie countering, conscience messing, whiners away from your table.  Let ‘em take their guilt-troubled egos to the dry salad and celery stalk rabbit hutch, while you push your ponderous gut forward and gulp with all the gusto of a starving hog at the trough.

I’m talking fresh apple cake!  And plenty of it!  That’s the ticket.

What the hey!  Do apples even grow in Texas?  Hells, bells, ye of little faith and paucity of knowledge.  Pomaceous fruit grow all over the Lone Star State, although Texas can’t compete with Washington State, which produces 60% of the apples in the U.S.

For this particular apple cake, and generally for cooking with apples, the rule of my thumb is:  the more tart the better.  Tart apples have an intense flavor that overpowers their sweeter kin.  How many varieties of apple are there, anyway?  About 6000, counting hybrids and a few thousand non-commercial types.  Did you know apples are a member of the rose family?  I didn’t pick up on that in 9^th grade biology either.

Let’s get on to some cookin’ and then on to some eatin’!

2 Cups Sugar

1 1/2 Cups vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons vanilla

2 eggs, well beaten

1/2 a lemon

3 Cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons aluminum free baking soda

3 Green Apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Heat the oven to 325ºF, or 165ºC

Oil and flour a bundt pan.

Put the sugar, oil, vanilla, and beaten eggs in a bowl and beat well.  Squeeze the lemon juice into the mix and beat again.

Ditch the electric beater and use a big wooden spoon to stir the flour mix into the bowl of sugar/oil. The dough will be stiff, but not to worry.  Now add the chopped apples and stir well.

Put the dough into the bundt pan and pop it in the oven.  Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.  When a knife comes out clean, the cake is ready.  Slip a knife around the inside of the pan, and then let the cake rest for about ten minutes.  Now invert the pan on a plate and the cake will come out cleanly.  The aroma is going to tantalize your nostrils and take your kitchen back to grandma’s glory days!

Time to brew some coffee, slice some cake and lock the door to keep out the nosey neighbors and those suddenly hungry health addicts who just raced back from the rabbit hutch.

Cake By the Pound

Golden, moist, and delicious

Don't be fooled.  Use 5 Eggs!

Pound cake goes way back in my family, to when we had a few less pounds to worry about. No wonder we love it.  It’s got all the good stuff: heaps of sugar, butter, flour, milk, and eggs.  Well, as they say, everything in moderation, but in the case of the most delicious pound cake you’ve ever tasted, you have to moderate your quest for moderation.  Either that, or do what we do.  Invite friends over and let them slather the calories down their own greedy throats.  I gave mine to a ton of friends, and both of them gobbled it right up.

A bit of history.  It was way, way back in the 1700’s when Dawg Pound, a delirious baker from Halfbakeshire, and his first wife, Wright Ata Pound, having tired of producing meat and potato pies for the undernourished, decided to deliver a hammer blow to those slight of waist and lacking in bulk.  The recipe they threw together called for a pound each of butter, flour, eggs, and sugar.  Thus the Pound Cake was born.  It was not until centuries later that a foursome of doctors, quite by accident, discovered the real advantage of pound cake.  It raises cholesterol, thus necessitating the consumption of copious quantities of red wine! Oh, what a happy day that was.  Church bells rang!  People danced in the streets.  Thus began the quaint custom of ‘pounding down’ a few.

This recipe cuts considerably the traditional quantities of  a pound of this and a pound of that, but nothing is lost and a lot is gained.  If you’re used to pound cake that is dry and flavorless, you’re in for a culinary rebirth.  This one is so rich and moist you’ll sneak back in the kitchen late at night, when calories don’t count.

Pound Cake

3 Sticks of butter, or two sticks of butter and half a cup of shortening

(Those substituting margarine will be bound over to the authorities.)

3 Cups of sugar (Diet chemical users, please just shoot yourselves now)

5 Eggs (I use ‘free range’ eggs, spawned by chickens training for a marathon.)

3 Cups of flour (No, I don’t grind my own, but I grind my teeth at the question.)

 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (Aluminum free, natch!  We ain’t makin’ cars!)

1 Cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon lemon extract  (only if you’re a timid mouse, governed by indecision and fear of failure;  otherwise use a Tablespoon of freshly grated lemon rind.)

Pre-heat oven to 325ºF or 165º C.

Cream the butter (or butter and shortening), add the sugar and beat until they are combined.  (I use my food processor to this point, then switch to hand mixing for a less fluffy consistency.)  Add the eggs one at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture.  Sift together the flour and baking powder.  Add the flour and the milk, a portion at a time, to the bowl of butter, sugar, and eggs.  Mix until everything is combined.  Add the flavorings and beat again.

Pour the batter into two, well greased loaf pans and bake for 1 1/4 hours to 1 1/2 hours.  Test occasionally by inserting a knife.  When the knife comes out clean, the cakes are done.

Note:  If the cakes are browning too fast, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil.

There are various ways to serve pound cake, other than slicing and slamming it down freestyle.  A friend’s mother likes to butter and toast the slices and serve them with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Sliced, sugared, strawberries on top, is another good way.  I eat my slice plain, with a cup of milk, because I'm a good boy and that’s the way my mother taught me..

There are also many variations of the cake itself.  I sometimes add nuts.  Pecans, or toasted almond slivers work well.  The cake may also be dusted with powdered sugar.

However you make it and serve it, your pound cake is going to make people view you in a new light.  No longer will you be the just another dog in the pack.  You’ll be the leader of the pound.  Whoops, gotta run.  Time for my dose of red wine.