Gastroanthropology

Apple Brown Butter Betty

When I want to make a quick and simple dessert an apple crisp always comes to mind. Peel and slice up a few apples, toss with lemon, cinnamon, brown sugar, a smidge of flour and a sprinkle of salt. For the top - a few oats, almond flour, a bit more flour, sugar, salt, and butter to keep it crumbly and crisp, and in the oven. Done. Maybe some ice cream on top and everyone is happy. What could be even easier with a similar result? Brown Betty. 

Brown Betty is the girl next door you never really think about, or talk to your friends about. You're not attracted to her at first sight, but you love it when you run into her and exchange hellos. Then one day, you hang out with her, spending some serious time and you can't believe you never noticed how amazing she really is. She doesn't require copious amounts of effort. She's perfect - never too much or over the top. You can bring her home to mom, but your friends think she's great too. Brown Betty is the dessert that is never really craved or swooned over, but when it's there you can't imagine life with her.

Brown Betty is way easier than pie and doesn't really require much of a recipe. To start, cube day-old brioche bread, or a mixture of country white bread and croissants into 1/2 inch cubes. You could also do this with fresh bread, just cut and cube a few hours before and set out to dry the bread a bit. Then, in a bowl, peel and slice tart apples. They should be sliced relatively thin - if they are too thick they won't soften enough by the time the bread on top browns. Toss apple slices with a squeeze of lemon, a generous amount of cinnamon, a bit of clove and nutmeg, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and a splash of brandy or calvados. Toss together and set aside. In a pot melt and brown butter. When the butter starts to brown and get nutty, pour most of the butter over the cubed bread and toss together. Reserve a bit of brown butter for sprinkling on top. In a buttered baking dish, layer the now brown buttered bread and/or croissant cubes with apples, starting and ending with the bread cubes. Sprinkle the remaining butter over top. You could sprinkle a bit of turbinado sugar on top as well, but it's not necessary. Bake in a 350F oven, for about 30 minutes. The apples should be soft, but not mushy, and the bread cubes on top should be a golden brown.

As a general guide I used a mixture of 6 cups of cubed white bread and croissants. I also used 6 apples, juice of 1 lemon, 1/4 cup brown sugar (add more if you like your desserts on the sweeter side), 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon, pinch each of nutmeg, clove and salt (use whatever spices you like with apples), 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 2 Tablespoons of calvados (if you don't want to use alcohol fresh apple juice is fine, but it does need a bit of liquid), and 4 ounces of butter. This fit perfectly in an medium-depth 8x8 inch baking dish.

Serve warm, with or without fresh heavy cream or vanilla ice cream. The bottom layer of bread soaks up all the cinnamony apple juice that caramelizes a bit while the top is crisp and buttery. It's understated, but perfect on a cool fall day.

Caramel Peach Grunt

Is it August already? It seems like just yesterday that I was desperately waiting for the arrival of summer, and today I saw Back to School signs at the bookstore! I'm past the age where I need to shop for school supplies or spend days mulling over the perfect outfit for the first day of school. But, I'm not past the age when August means perfect peaches and the hottest moments of summer.

Like most fruit, I enjoy it fresh, ripe, and hopefully still warm from basking in the sunlight. The peaches above are in California from two weeks ago and well on their way to perfection. In London its a bit harder to get sun sweetened and syrupy peaches as they must travel from afar to arrive. So rather than humiliate them by trying to enjoy them fresh its better to morph them into other tasty things. 

Again, through the power of food blogging, I got a wonderful recommendation for Rustic Fruit Desserts from Kristin at dinner du jour. Kristin is an American who lives in the Irish countryside and blogs in tandem with her friend Kelly in Milwaukee. Rustic Fruit Desserts is exactly that...cobblers, slumps, fools, buckles, grunts and more...all using fruit. 

One of the first things that called to me was the Caramel Peach Grunt - skin-on peaches smothered in a peachy caramel sauce, topped with biscuits, and all done in one cast-iron skillet.

CARAMEL PEACH GRUNT adapted from Rustic Fruit Desserts

For the Caramel Peaches

• 3 1/2 pounds peaches, skins pierced and each cut into 10 slices
• 1 cup sugar for caramel
• 1/2 cup sugar for peaches
• 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (1 oz) 
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

METHOD

Toss peaches in 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl and let sit for 30 minutes. Strain the juice and reserve. Toss peaches with cornstarch and salt. Preheat oven to 375F.

Combine 1 cup sugar with water in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet on medium-high heat. Gentle move sugar around with a clean wooden spoon to make sure it is all wet. At this point leave the sugar alone but do not walk away from the pan. When most of the sugar reaches a dark amber, swirl the pan and remove from the heat. Carefully add the reserved peach juice and butter to the caramel. Take care as the hot sugar may bubble up a bit. Put back on heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat just as it comes to a boil and add the peaches. Turn off the heat and let peaches sit in the warm caramel while you make the biscuit dough. Note: The original recipe has you cook the peaches for 10 to 15 minutes, but I find this breaks down the peaches too much, especially if they are ripe. The time in the oven should cook the peaches perfectly, allowing them to keep shape and not disintegrate.

For the Biscuit

• 2 cups (10 oz) all-purpose flours (I used half whole wheat flour - worked great!)
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 Tablespoons (3 oz), cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 cup cold buttermilk

METHOD

Whisk together the dry ingredients. I usually freeze my butter for about 10 minutes before making biscuit dough. Pulse drys and butter in a food processor, or use a pastry cutter, to cut the butter until it is the size of small peas. Pour in the cold buttermilk and mix till the dough barely comes together. I usually use my hands and gently use the motion that mimics a dog digging for a bone. The dough will be wet and sticky. Drop the biscuit dough over the peaches into 12 equal portions (I made a bit less because I have a smaller cast-iron skillet, hence only 8 biscuits). Bake in the lower third of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the biscuits puff up and are golden. Let cool for 20 minutes before serving. Eat soon - the biscuits will get soggy if you let is sit for too long. 

Cloudberry Rye Crumble Bar

A few things come to mind when you think of Scandinavia... snow...

Norway in March 2010

fishing "villages"...

Bergen, Norway

salmon, herring, shrimp...

and, of course, more snow...

There is something so intriguing to me about Scandinavia in wintertime. Everything seems to be covered in a fresh blanket of snow for as far as the eye can see. When flying in it's almost impossible to tell where water meets land as everything is untouched, frozen and dusted in snow. 

In summertime, the southern parts of Scandinavia begin to thaw and the most amazing things emerge. 

One would be the arctic cloudberry. It's almost as elusive as the ice queens and trolls that live in Norway. By the way, I don't believe they don't exist! Cloudberries can survive extreme arctic temperatures and in summertime ripen under the Midnight Sun. When ripe they look almost like yellow raspberries. Their flavor is hard to pin down - they definitely taste a bit like a berry, but add hints of pineapple. Like a wild mountain strawberry you can taste the "wilderness" in a cloudberry. They are hard to find and nearly impossible to cultivate. Their fruit bearing time is so short lived that apart from countries close to the arctic circle you are probably looking at experiencing cloudberries via jam. 

Various places sell it online and in London you can always get a jar at the Scandinavian Kitchen. It's delicious warm over ice cream or as an addition to a cheese plate. I thought I would pair it with another Nordic staple - rye.

CLOUDBERRY RYE CRUMBLE BAR

This recipe is adapted from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce. Boyce's book does not disappoint. Each thing I try becomes my new favorite. As she suggests the recipe is versatile and any fruit spread would work. The rye and cloudberry jam is an irresistible combination. Please read through as this recipe is multi-step. This recipe makes 12 servings.

For the Shortbread Rye Crust -

• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, melted and cooled (plus extra for buttering the pan)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Sift all dry ingredients together, adding any bits of grain left in the sifter. Add melted butter and vanilla extract. Mix till combined and press into the pan with your hands. Chill in freezer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat oven to 275F. Once chilled, bake for 50-55 minutes till golden brown and firm. While baking, prepare crumble topping (see below). Remove from oven and increase oven temperature to 350F.

For the Rye Crumble Topping -

• 1 cup whole rolled oats
• 3 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons rye flour
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (original calls for 1 teaspoon, but found it to be a bit too much)
• 3 ounces unsalted butter, melted and cooled

• 1 1/2 cups cloudberry jam

Combine all the dry ingredients, including the sugars and salt. Pulse a few times in a food processor till oats are partially ground. Put in a mixing bowl and add the melted butter and combine by hand. Squeeze dough to make crumbly bits. Set aside.

Spread the jam over the shortbread crust when it comes out of the oven for the first time. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over top. Bake in oven for another 50-55 minutes or until the crumble topping gently browns.

When the pan has cooled just enough to handle run a sharp knife along the edge to loosen any cloudberry jam that may have stuck to the side of the pan. Remove the ring of the springform pan. Once cooled dust with powdered sugar and cut into 12 wedges or your desired shape.

Serve plain or with a bit of loosely whipped, unsweetened cream. If you have trouble finding cloudberry jam, any berry or stone fruit jam would be delicious with the nutty rye. 

 

Food for Thought + Apple Crisp

This week hasn't been the best for an American expat in London. I had a little spat with a British food writer who did an opinion piece on Thanksgiving dinner for Waitrose Food Illustrated. She said the holiday had a huge downside (upsides included no presents, no cards, and no religious ceremonies) and that the feast was "downright bizarre". She also knocked Americans for not knowing how to roast potatoes...this all from a Brit...because the British are so much more gastronomically inclined than Americans.

In her defense she did write me to say that her piece was meant to be humorous. As I was reading it I thought maybe that was her intention and kept waiting for the funny bit, the sarcastic jab, but it never emerged. I also thought that any reader who has never experienced a "proper" Thanksgiving dinner would be left with an idea of Thanksgiving that is so far from the truth.

This got me thinking about food writing...what about food critics and restaurant reviewers? More harm than good?

Having worked in a high profile restaurant I've experienced first hand that all critics are not created equal and not all critiques are purely objective.  You can also be sure if the restaurant staff knows there's a critic in the house the critic isn't being treated like the average diner.

Restaurant reviews only give me the ability to imagine the critic's experience. I can't feel the ambiance or taste the food. I don't know if the critic has had a bad day or that I'm interpreting his description the way he meant. I recently read a negative review where the critic described the bread pudding as soggy. Um, isn't bread pudding soaked in liquid, and therefore at its essence, soggy? There are also times when something sounds so deliciously descriptive, like on a menu, and then my tastebuds are totally disappointed.And then, there are those restaurants that have gotten great reviews where its like the Emperor's New Clothes and some are afraid to say how they truly feel.

So what to do? Never treat one review as the gold standard. Ask your friends, check out some blogs and other food sites, like Yelp, where users generate reviews. I've been to many of the best restaurants in food capitals all around the world and I have to say the best meals (food+service+ambiance) are rarely the ones with multiple Michelin stars.

And now I leave you with a simple Apple Crisp. You be the critic.

APPLE CRISP

• 3 oz unsalted butter (melted)
• 3/4 c + 1 Tbs all purpose flour
• 1/4 c rolled oats
• 1/4 c almond flour
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground clove
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c + 2 Tbs packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 currants or cranberries (optional)
• 4-5 medium firm, tart apples (like granny smith)
• 1/2 juice of 1 lemon

METHOD

Melt butter over low heat. Meanwhile, slice apples (I don't peel mine but peel them if you prefer it) and toss with lemon juice, 1 Tbs flour, and 2 Tbs brown sugar in a small baking dish. Sprinkle currants or cranberries over the apples. Combine all other ingredients, pour melted butter over top, and stir with a large spoon or fork. It should come together in a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle over top of the apples. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour in 350 Fahrenheit/ 180 Celsius oven. Serve warm, and maybe with a little vanilla ice cream. This recipe only serves up to four people and the perfect ending to a dinner for two. Double it if you need more.