the queen of fruit
09 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in recipes, sweets, vegan, vegetarian Tags: Brooklyn, chinatown, fruit, mangosteen, thailand
a bowl of mangosteen
we’ve been celebrating the eruption of spring with fava beans, ramps and asparagus. Too busy with celebratory eating to write about the cooking, but it is so thrilling when curiosities wander into my kitchen that I had to post these mangosteen photos.
the preacher eater found the fruits in Chinatown, where they landed after a long trip from Thailand or a short one from the rooftop garden of a wizard cultivating in the City’s heart.
sufficiently awe-inspiring to be called “the mangosteen,” the beet coloured fruits appear to be carved of wood, with a stylized flower on their bottoms that would make cheery stamps without all the effort of carving a potato. These small daisies represent how many sections are within the red globe.
known also as “the queen of fruits,” mangosteen lore boasts it is the only thing Queen Victoria couldn’t serve at her table, despite offering a reward of 100 pounds to anyone who could deliver her the fresh fruit. Durian fruit is similarly crowned “the king,” but that must be sheer stinky bullying on the part of the Durian, because that stuff is inapproachable, suitable only for gag-scenting novelty condoms. Mangosteens, on the other hand, are juicy-creamy and demurely flavored.
to eat out of hand, with the sharp tip of a paring knife, pierce the flesh, which are not wooden but leathery and deeper than orange skin. Cut around the circumference and twist apart the halves, like you would an avocado, to reveal 4-6 white fleshy sections of fruit. It is like an underwater creature, the soft interior of the pod pink and fine veined. Pop out the sections and eat; the larger ones have a seed to suck around.
presented with this bagful of pool ball like fruits, i dove on-line for recipes: salads, chutneys and a mangosteen clafouti, also once described: “there’s a fancy French cake called clafoutis. It is an eggie batter with lots of fruit spooned on top, like almost half fruit. So if you make a weird cake, call it clafoutis.”
the mangosteen
the flavor is so delicate and the raw fruit so satisfyingly bizarre to eat that I never did cook it—seemed a shame to cloud the experience with any other flavors. Then I found a sorbet that looked promising, made with champagne no less, a worthy toast to an exotic guest in my kitchen. Next time a bagful arrives, I am hitting up my friend with the ice cream maker.
saffron flat bread
12 Jul 2008 Leave a Comment
in bread, recipes, tomato, vegan, vegetarian Tags: almonds, baking, bread, cooking, focaccia, friendship, fruit, india, kitchen, organic, saffron, summer, witches
my favorite kitchen witch flew in for fireworks last weekend. We didn’t plan it: on Tuesday we happened to talk; it became possible; then it happened. Joy—it’s been months of missing her face.
in honor of her coming, something must be made with the most precious gift, the unopened box of saffron from my flatmate, recently returned from India. When her purchases finally followed her, she presented yet another lovely gift, the sexiest so far, possibly ever so far, reminiscent of the amethyst earrings and embroidered pillow covers that the Persian kitten brought me back from Turkey: saffron from Kashmir. From disputed territory, she said.
focaccia has been the order of the Sunday in the radical muffin kitchen for at least three months. It is time to share a recipe. This decadent saffron flat bread is a tarted out focaccia, so the basic architecture is below and the variation follows
- basic focaccia
pour one cup of hot water into a wide glass mixing bowl. When the water is hottish warm (books say 38° degrees), sprinkle a packet of yeast over the surface. Take the bowl in your hands and give it all a swirl. Give the wee beasties peace and quiet for three to five minutes.
whisk in about a cup and a half of flour. I use organic unbleached white flour. Cover the slurry with a wet towel, though don’t drape it directly on the surface or it will stick in a big and disgusting way. You could, I suppose, add a layer of plastic wrap, but I imagine it I better for the yeast to have the moisture and the air. Alternatively, pour a thing layer of olive oil over the top.
let this sit for 45 minutes to an hour. Bread likes to rise in a draft free, warm place, so find a cozy spot for your bowl like the back of the stove. My mom used to put rising things on top of the refrigerator. We have a spot in our living room that is often in a sun patch. Think of your rising bread like a napping kitten: where would she like to be? Though, happily, you can pick convenient places unlike, say, the keyboard of the laptop.
times up—get your wooden spoon. Stir in two or three tablespoons of sugar or honey and a slug or two of olive oil (or stir in what you poured on top). Oil a clean baking sheet while you have the oil and your hands are still clean.
add flour next, stirring in just enough to handle the dough, because kneading comes next. You can work with surprisingly liquid dough, and it makes for a light focaccia. Try stirring in only about half a cup more of flour. Have another half cup on the side to add as needed. Oil your hands, and try to pick up the dough.
working over the bowl, hold it in a ball between your hands. Pull your hands apart, letting the dough stretch between them. Clap gently back together and pull back again. Add twisting motions, fitting your hands together while making like talking shadow puppets, left thumb on top then right thumb on top. Envision bread mixers, cotton candy spinners, taffy pullers. It will ooze between your fingers. Scrap it back into the central body. Knead it in the air like this for at least six minutes, and the longer the knead, the more exquisite the bread. You will feel it getting smoother, more elastic. I go for 9 – 12 then my arms start to hurt, but since I’ve been in training, I can go longer. Hey—tastier than the gym, right?
adding more flour, or subbing in whole wheat flour, makes a heartier denser bread. Sometimes that’s just the thing, when it is destined to become of vehicle for wet tomato slabs or partner to winter root veggie soup, for examples.
to knead a heavier dough, stir in about cup and a half of flour and press an roll the dough into a ball in the bowl. Press your fist into it, up against the side of the bowl, stretching it out. Fold it over itself and do it again and again and again. Turn the dough, turn the bowl. With the stiffer dough, you can also turn it out onto a floured board. Visit here for a pretty good kneading description: Choosing Voluntary Simplicity.
transfer the dough to the oiled baking sheet. Drape wet dough. Sort of pour it from your hands, laying it out into a rectangular shape. Stiffer bread-to-be can be pulled into a rough rectangle or rolled out on a floured board. Let it rise on the baking sheet for another half an hour or so, and pre-heat the oven to 400°.
the wet style may be too sticky to take the traditional dimples in focaccia, and it wants a topping or, frankly, it’s kinda fugly. If it is not too sticky, use your fingertips to gently push hollows into the surface of the bread. You can lightly brush the dough with oil or sprinkle with water. Top with generous sprinkling of sea salt or kosher salt. Add any other toppings at this time, and let it rest for another 10 minutes or so.
bake for 20 minutes. More makes for crispier; less makes for chewier. Buona gusta!
- saffron flat bread
use 1/4 cup of the hot water to soak a generous pinch of saffron. Stir the golden liquid and threads into the dough with the second addition of flour.
mix together about a 1/4 cup each of halved dried cherries, golden raisins, and almond slivers. After the dough has rested on the baking tray for 15 minutes to half hour, spread the fruit and almonds over the top. Sprinkle with coarse salt and sugar, about a tablespoon each. Cardamom would be a welcome addition, likewise orange zest.
pineapple upside down cake deluxé
09 Mar 2008 5 Comments
in blueberries, cake, recipes, sweets, vegetarian Tags: baking, coconut milk, fruit, international women's day, pineapple, sustainable development, women's rights
though women’s movements worldwide are local and- with love and care- sustainable, this is the opposite of a local, sustainable recipe.
Pineapple and coconut in Brooklyn? During the icy windy gusts of March? As you know, however, the Radical Muffin kitchen came into all this free fruit and has been generating a bevy of recipes seemingly out of line of the ethics of this collection.
it has been fun to indulge in a few recipes with a retro twist like the pineapple upside down cake below. As one kitchen maven writes, “It is so easy, and it makes everyone feel special.” Serving suggestion: with black patent leather peek-a-boo lady shoes.
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let ¾ cups of butter (1 ½ sticks) and three eggs come to room temperature if refrigerated. Heat the oven to 375º. While the oven is heating, toast a few handfuls of delicate coconut flakes (about ½ a cup or more or less on your love of texture in cake and coconut). Spread them on a cookie sheet and bake for a minute or two. Watch them carefully; they burn quickly.
butter a 9 inch round baking pan with a ¼ cup (½ stick) of butter. Grease the entire pan then break off dabs of butter and place them all around. Some folks line the pan with parchment paper, but I think this is one instance where the outcome is better if you suffer through the clean up of the naked pan. The sugars come to caramel more richly. There is also a camp who prefer glass over metal and those who wouldn’t back in anything other than a cast iron skillet. I used a middle-American non-stick baking pan. Next time I happen across pineapple, I am trying this in my cast iron skillet. (I will also add a few slugs of rum.)
sprinkle ¼ cup of brown sugar evenly over the bottom of the pan. Lay out slices of pineapple to cover the bottom of the pan. The pineapple up-side down cake came into its glory in the 1920s, with the blue and yellow appearance of Dole canned pineapple on the shelves of supermarkets and had a resurgence in the ’50s in the era of canned everything. The machine-cut rings punctuated with bomb shelter strength Maraschino cherries are classic PUC styling.
many recipes call for chunked or even crushed pineapple. I sliced the chunks from the fruit plate and formed a layer of more or less rectangles, sometimes overlapping corners, a little jumbled. You will need about 3 cups of pineapple or one pound; fresh recipes call for a full pineapple. Since they were on hand, I sprinkled blueberries over the pineapple.
triple sift 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour with ¾ teaspoon baking powder and ½ teaspoon of salt, and set aside.
with a large fork or an electric hand mixer, beat 1 cup of granulated sugar into the soft ½ cup of butter. Add the 3 eggs one at a time, beating each one in thoroughly. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and ¾ cup of coconut milk then beat until creamy. Gradually beat in flour mixture until combined.
gently, with a wooden spoon, stir in the toasted coconut. Spread the batter over the pineapple and bake for about an hour and 15 minutes or until the cake is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Pull the pan from the oven, and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert the cake onto your serving vehicle.
Ciao Bella’s vanilla gelato has been my accompaniment of choice, when I can get a slice to a plate and not just break off pieces with my fingers.
work perks
02 Mar 2008 1 Comment
in narrative Tags: class, fregan, fruit, laverne & shirley, reception, taxi, television
my flat-mate and I worked on a snazzy reception for our office (NGO directors, a few European parliamentarians, UN agency staff, international repro rights activists, and ivy league demographers & public health experts), and we earned an in-kind bonus: a one gallon zip locked bag of crudités and a fruit plate so heavy that Wonder Woman was stuck with her hinney hoisted into the air out of the trunk of the car we took home from Manhattan on the boss’s $20. In the middle of late night traffic, her legs kicking, I chose my moment carefully to lean in, catch her around the waist and lever her out—triumphant—with the glorious fruit plate. A true Laverne & Shirley moment!
The recipe that follows and the Pineapple Blubbery Upside Down Cake and the Precious Berries Muffins (forthcoming) are from the booty (and my heart).
