As we were prepping at the Phillips’ cabin in northern Wisconsin for our latest trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, I was introduced to the kringle, a member of the Danish pastry family formed into a ring which is the state pastry of Wisconsin. It was good, so of course I kept my eyes Read More …
As part of our English themed Christmas dinner, we bought a 6 lb. standing rib roast for 6 people. Following some ideas in Serious Eats, I first salted and peppered the exterior surfaces, and let it stand while I heated my MasterBuilt Electric Box Smoker to 200 degrees. I roasted it in the box smoker Read More …
This year we decided to have an English themed Christmas dinner, and popovers fit right into that theme. My ancestry is predominantly English, so this is as close to ancestral cooking as I usually come. Popovers are very similar to Yorkshire Pudding, which my mother sometimes made for holidays, but I think popovers are Read More …
This was our dessert for Christmas dinner this year, probably the third time it has filled this role. It is a South African version of an English pudding, which means that it is a very moist cake. It is not at all what Americans normally mean by “pudding”. This will serve about 12 people. For Read More …
This is how I fixed the centerpiece of our Christmas Eve dinner this year. It is the combination of a Japanese marinade and American hot smoking, and it turned out very well. 3 lb salmon filet cut into two pieces 3/4 cup miso 4-1/2 Tbs sake 4-1/2 Tbs mirin ½ cup sugar Mix together the Read More …
This is one of my favorite kinds of cookies. This batch was made for the Boy Scout Christmas party from a recipe in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It made 24 cookies, which spread more than I was expecting, but tasted very good. ¾ cups (1-1/2 sticks) butter 1 cup sugar, plus more for rolling Read More …
These meatballs in a spicy sauce were tasty with good bread, in this case Lepinja with Preferment . The recipe below is how I prepared them following a recipe from The Homesick Texan. 2 chipotles makes for a sauce which is probably too spicy for most people, although not for us. Also 1 tsp. of Read More …
This was a successful experiment to improve the Bosnian flatbread Lepinja by adding a preferment step, rather than making it as a straight dough. The process involved dividing the original recipe into two parts, a preferment part, made earlier to develop gluten and flavor complexity, and the remainder added at the normal time a few Read More …
This made an excellent Friday night dinner for company, with chicken breasts providing an economical alternative to the traditional veal. (Turkey cutlets would also work well here.) This recipe, which is an adaptation from Serious Eats, includes the trick of adding gelatin to the liquids to give the sauce a better mouthfeel. 1-1/4 Read More …
This classic was one of the two ways we used up the leftover turkey from this year’s Thanksgiving. This recipe is an adaptation from a recipe on Epicurious.com. 10 oz. mushrooms, sliced 5 Tbs. butter, divided ¼ cup all purpose flour 1-3/4 cups milk 2 cups chicken or turkey stock ¼ cup dry white Read More …