Cooking With Lady Evil: Candied Chestnuts

Ah, good old chestnuts.

They're the most recognizable of retro holiday foodstuffs. Even people who have never actually tasted them couldn't imagine roasting anything else over an open fire in December. Williams-Sonoma makes chestnut-scented candles and Starbucks apparently introduced a chestnut praline latte this year. We associate chestnuts with comfort, coziness and Christmas cheer.

Ironically, they've also been responsible for more frustration, burned fingers and steady streams of mumbled cuss words in my kitchen than any other "exotic" ingredient I've tried to work with. Chestnuts are deceptively hard to cook. They take a lot of time, effort and patience, and a lot of the instructions for handling them that I found around the internet simply didn't work for me. Since chestnuts are often expensive and it can be heartbreaking to ruin them, I've put together the recipe for candied chestnuts that--after much tweaking--finally worked out almost perfectly for me this year.

I've also peppered it heavily with warnings about the pitfalls of cooking chestnuts, because there are many.

1.  Get yourself a pound of chestnuts.

Odds are that you'll accomplish this step by going to your local grocery store, loading up a bag from the obligatory barrel o' chestnuts that every grocery store has this time of year, and paying for said bag at the counter. If this is the route you're taking, congratulations. There is nothing more you need to know about this step.

If you plan on buying a paper bag full of freshly-picked chestnuts from a local farmers' market, however, keep in mind that when they come off the tree, chestnuts look like this:

...and that odds are your hand-picked chestnuts haven't been completely separated from every last fragment of that prickly mutant-cactus-looking protective shell. Don't stick your hand in the bag too enthusiastically, is what I'm saying.

2.  Shell the chestnuts.

This is the hardest step in the entire recipe, because chestnut shells are the most evil shells in all of nut-dom. There is no way to remove them from the meat beneath without first roasting the nuts and then quickly and painfully shelling said nuts while they're still hotter than the surface of Mercury, because if you wait until they've cooled, the shells will start to adhere to the nuts again. And even then, it's often almost impossible to keep the damn nuts intact while you're shelling them.

I've tried several different techniques to make this process easier and less frustrating, and I've found that the easiest way to do it is to cut through each chestnut's shell--but not into the meat any more than you have to--with a sharp knife until your incision reaches around about 85% of the nut's circumference. Your end result should look something like this once they come out of the oven:

This method still isn't perfect; it takes a long time even with a very sharp knife, and gave me hand cramps. But I only broke one chestnut in half while shelling it this time around, so I'll take it.

3.  Roast the chestnuts in a 350 degree oven for ten to fifteen minutes.

Easiest step on the list. If you remember (I didn't) you can sprinkle them with a little water before they go in to make them easier to peel.

4.  Remove chestnuts from the oven and peel off their shells.

Good news: Because of the way you've cut them, the shells should come off easily--like cracking open a giant pistachio.

Bad news: You've got to do it quick--like, right out of the oven quick--or they'll start sticking again when they cool down. Handling burning-hot chestnuts is, as you may have guessed, unpleasant. It helps somewhat to wear two pairs of disposable food handling gloves while you're doing it, although that does make it a bit harder to handle the nuts. Nor will it protect you from poky, jagged shell edges.

Also, as if all that packaging weren't already enough, the chestnut meat is covered by a papery brown membrane, which also needs to be removed. Sometimes if you're lucky, it comes off with the shell and you don't have to worry about it. More often, it only partially comes off or doesn't come off at all, and if you don't remove it fast enough (i.e. right when the nuts come out of the oven) it cements itself to the nut and will not budge for any consideration. I hate this stupid membrane. It seems to serve no purpose other than to taunt me and stand in the way of my enjoyment of sweet chestnut flesh.

Fortunately you don't need to worry too much about the membrane for this recipe, because in the next step we...

5.  Put chestnuts in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and boil for ten minutes

Once you're done with this step, pour the chestnuts into a colander. Once the water is drained away, pick any remaining membrane fragments off the chestnuts with your fingers or rub it off with a dish towel. It should be waterlogged and peel off easily. Take that, impenetrable fun-ruining membrane!

6.  In a separate pan mix together 2 cups water, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Bring this mixture to a boil and boil for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Also, watch it carefully. From personal experience, I have learned that boiling-over sugar syrup + hot stove = loud smoke alarm and husband giving you grief for not being more careful.

7.  Add chestnuts and boil them in syrup mixture for 10 minutes.

8.  Pour chestnuts and syrup into a container with a lid and cover loosely. Let sit for 12-18 hours.

Be sure to wait a few minutes for the syrup to cool down, though. Sugar can get HOT.

9.  Repeat the boiling-covering-and-letting-sit process 3-4 times.

Hmm, I forgot to mention up front that this was a multi-day process. Over the next 3 to 4 days you're basically supposed to boil the chestnuts in the syrup for 10 minutes, then pour them back into their container and let them sit for 12 hours, then repeat the process until the syrup is mostly absorbed. (It'll never be fully absorbed for this recipe. I always make a little extra because the nice thick vanilla-chestnut syrup is good on pancakes.)

10.  Enjoy!

I like to crumble my candied chestnuts up and eat them over vanilla ice cream, or bake them into bread. If you get enough whole ones to put into paper candy cups, they also make great additions to a Christmas baked goods gift box.




    

Cooking With Lady Evil: Apple-Peach Pie With Bourbon And Crumb Topping

Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks.

That calls for a good pie recipe.

Pie can be a deceptively complex thing to make, so I'm gonna break this process up into steps to make it easier to follow.

Optional Beginning Step: Go to the local U-Pick orchard and pick yourself a ginormous pile of apples. These are Gala, but Mackintosh or Granny Smith would be good too.   

Step 1: Make the crust.

(Note: I've always found regular pie dough to be kind of boring, and I'm terrible at making it anyway. So I prefer to make a shortbread-based pie crust instead. I found the recipe in this book, which I highly recommend. The buttermilk pecan pie that the shortbread crust comes with is pretty awesome too.)

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cold water

Place butter, flour, sugar, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Mix together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until it resembles coarse meal.

Add the egg yolk and the vanilla, and mix on low speed until well-blended.

Sprinkle in the water and use your hands to shape the dough into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic, FLATTEN IT (this step is more important than you'd think) and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Step 2: Make the filling while you wait for the dough to chill.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large fresh peaches
3-6 fresh Gala apples (My apples were small. You'd probably only need 3 big store-bought apples.)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon bourbon

Core and skin apples and cut them into eighths. Pit, skin and slice peaches into eighths. In a large bowl, mix sugar, flour and cinnamon. Pour in peaches, apples and bourbon; toss to coat thoroughly.

Step 3: Make the crumb topping.

1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, softened

Mix sugar and flour in a medium bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly.

Step 4: Put everything together.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. (Note: My brand-new oven preheats practically in the blink of an eye. If your oven is older and slower, you may want to start preheating it sooner.)

Retrieve the crust dough from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, and turn out onto a floured surface for rolling. By the way, remember how I put the FLATTEN IT instruction in all-caps back in step 1, and you probably thought I was being a drama queen? This dough is hella dense. I didn't bother to flatten it the last time I made it--I guess I thought I could save some plastic wrap or something--and I almost gave myself a hernia rolling it out. I seriously had to lean my whole weight on the rolling pin.

Anyway.

Roll out the shortbread dough to approximately 1/4 inch thick and place it into a greased 9-inch pie pan to form a crust. Reserve any extra dough for decorative elements.

Pour the apple and peach mixture into the prepared pie dish and sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over the top. If you have leftover dough, use it to create a decorative border around the rim of the pie plate. Cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil so they won't burn.

Bake for 45-60 minutes with a foil-covered cookie sheet on the rack below to catch any drippings. When the filling has grown bubbly and the crust is golden brown, the pie is done. Cool on a wire rack, and happily devour.

Cooking With Lady Evil: Doughnut Sundae And Steak Rub

So Fall is coming soon.

We all know what that means.

Krispy Kreme pumpkin spice doughnuts are on shelves again! I'm telling you right now, there's nothing better than a Krispy Kreme pumpkin spice doughnut.

Except for a Krispy Kreme pumpkin spice doughnut that has just been microwaved for fifteen seconds to make it all warm and sticky and gooey like it just came off the conveyor belt of one of those awesome machines.

If you were to, say, plop a big scoop of ice cream (vanilla works best, but dulce de leche would probably be pretty good too) on top of that doughnut, I doubt anyone would complain. And if you then drizzled the ice cream with a touch of caramel or butterscotch sauce and a few rainbow sprinkles, well, then you're just following the progression of deliciousness to its natural conclusion. 

Seriously, though, buy some pumpkin spice Krispy Kremes, heat one in the microwave for fifteen minutes, and put ice cream, caramel sauce and sprinkles on top. Best. Sundae. Ever. It tastes like Halloween candy and happiness.

And since slapping store-bought ice cream on a store-bought doughnut and calling it cooking seems a little lazy, here's a bonus recipe for a simple steak rub. I've found it works quite well on beef, but it'd probably also work on pork, or even as a seasoning for steamed vegetables:

1/2 cup coarse sea salt

2 teaspoons whole mixed peppercorns

2 teaspoons dried tarragon

Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, coarsely grind the peppercorns. Mix salt, ground peppercorns and tarragon. Place mixture in a food processor and pulse several times.* Can be stored in an airtight container for several months. 

*Or if you're me, use a long, sharp knife and a sturdy cutting board to cut up the salt mixture manually while wishing you had a decent, non-broken food processor. 

Cooking With Lady Evil: Lamb Tagine

My parents came over for dinner last week. Like I usually do when my parents come over, I pulled out all the stops to put forward the appearance of being a serious cook who doesn't live on peanut butter and jelly. I had recently stumbled upon this recipe and decided to give it a try. Or at least to give something similar to it a try. I have a bad (?) habit of unnecessarily fancifying every recipe I try. Here's my version (along with my reasoning for stuff I changed or added):

Lamb Tagine

Ingredients: 

3 1/2 pounds bone-in lamb shoulder chops*

2 whole cloves*

1 tablespoon dried parsley*

2 teaspoons dried basil*

7 garlic cloves (4 whole, 3 chopped or crushed in a garlic press)*

1 teaspoon salt*

8-10 whole black peppercorns*

1/2 cup dried chickpeas**

1 cinnamon stick

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin***

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 tablespoon fresh chopped ginger

2 large tomatoes, diced****

1/2 cup whole dried apricots, snipped in half with kitchen scissors

1 tablespoon tea-rose petal preserves*****

Sea salt and ground black pepper

1 10 oz box plain couscous******

1 pinch saffron threads******

The day before cooking the stew, trim away excess fat from lamb chops and carve into 1" cubes. Put meat into an airtight container and store in fridge for later use. Put bones from shoulder chops into a stockpot and pour in enough cold water to cover--about 6 to 8 cups. Bring to a boil. An opaque gray froth will form on top of the boiling liquid; carefully skim the froth off with a spoon and add the cloves, dried parsley, dried basil, 2 of the whole garlic cloves, whole peppercorns, and 1 teaspoon salt. Partially cover and simmer over low heat for 2 hours. Meanwhile, put chickpeas in a medium saucepan with enough water to cover them by an inch or two.

Strain the broth through a fine sieve and discard bones and spices. Let cool and skim off fat. Pour into airtight container and store in fridge. Let chickpeas soak overnight.

Drain chickpeas, return to same saucepan, and add water to cover. Add the remaining 2 whole garlic cloves and cinnamon stick. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes, until chickpeas are tender. Drain and discard garlic cloves and cinnamon stick. While chickpeas are cooking, toast coriander seeds in a small skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes. Transfer seeds to a mortar and add red pepper flakes. Coarsely crush seeds and pepper flakes with a pestle. Mix in cumin, cinnamon, paprika, cardamom, ginger, and turmeric and reserve in mortar.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Season lamb cubes with salt and pepper and lightly brown on all sides. Transfer lamb to a medium bowl and gently saute chopped garlic and chopped ginger, about 2 minutes. Add spice mix and saute 1 minute more. Add tomatoes and lamb. Add 3 cups of reserved lamb broth. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer about 1 1/2 hours. Stir in chickpeas and simmer until heated through, about 10 minutes. Stir in apricots and rose preserves and simmer for 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cook couscous according to directions on box, substituting remaining lamb broth and saffron threads for water. Serve stew over couscous.

My Verdict:

This recipe was amazing. It smelled delicious, tasted even more delicious, and the flavors intensified and improved as the leftovers sat in the fridge. However, it was also labor-intensive and hella expensive, and its spice levels might be too high for some peoples' palates. Great thing to make for special occasions and impressing your foodie friends; not a good choice for a quick, simple meal for that friend or relative who always orders plain cheese pizza. 

*My local grocery store only carries whole shoulder chops, and I hate wasting food so I decided to make broth from the bones and use it instead of the chicken stock the original recipe calls for.

**It turns out the measly 3/4 cup of dried chickpeas in the original recipe becomes a huge crapload of chickpeas once they've been re-hydrated and cooked. I recommend reducing the amount a bit.

***The original recipe calls for whole cumin seeds. I didn't have any.

****The original recipe calls for canned diced tomatoes. See what I said above about unnecessary fancification.

*****I really like the extra bit of sweetness they add to the aroma and flavor, but I do acknowledge that they're kind of an acquired taste. Also they're 12 bucks a jar.

******I wanted to use up the rest of the lamb broth. Again, hate wasting food. By the way, saffron is even more expensive than the rose petal preserves: sixteen bucks for a .8 ounce jar. That's POINT eight ounces. Not eight ounces. If you want saffron, I recommend asking for some for Christmas rather than buying it yourself. 

My Misspent Easter Sunday

I've noticed a lot of recipes for Cadbury creme egg brownies floating around the internet lately.

As usually happens when I'm confronted with a horrendous idea involving gargantuan doses of sugar and bad taste, I simply had to try it out.

The results were messy, yet colorful and festive looking.

In case you're wondering what's up with the left side of the pan, that was done for Technomancer's benefit.  He's one of those sadly disadvantaged individuals who doesn't appreciate the wondrous bundle of cheap chocolate deliciousness that is the Cadbury creme egg, so out of wifely affection* I made half the brownies with Cadbury mini eggs instead.

These are surprisingly good, and the eggs seem like they'd work with pretty much any brownie recipe.  This is the one I used:

Swedish Brownies (With Cadbury Eggs)

2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
2 cups sugar
5 generous tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 (real, from an actual chicken) eggs, beaten
6-8 Cadbury creme eggs or 1 package Cadbury mini eggs, if desired

Mix flour, sugar, salt and cocoa powder in a large bowl.  Melt butter in a large saucepan; stir in flour mixture and vanilla.  Add eggs after allowing a minute or two for batter to cool down.  Pour into a greased 8 x 8 pan.

If desired, press Cadbury eggs into batter before baking.  If using creme eggs, carefully cut them in half** and place them cut side up.

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

And thus concludes my so-bad-it's-good-idea moment of the day.

Happy Easter!

*That's fancy talk for "I didn't want to end up eating an entire pan of brownies by myself."

**Cutting a Cadbury creme egg in half...is not so simple as it sounds.  The chocolate shell cracks and warps at the slightest provocation, and the gooey fondant stuff inside wants to go all over the damn place.  Your best bet is probably to use a very sharp knife and cut right along the seam where they fused the two halves of the shell together.