Brioche

My mom always talks about all the 'new' foods that my dad's family introduced her to after she and my dad married. You know, really exotic things like granny smith apples and biscuits. I don't think my mom had ever had either one before the first time she had dinner with my dad's family, and when I was growing up, I never understood why. Now that I'm cooking Eleanor's recipes, though, I'm starting to get it. Eleanor was not a biscuit type of lady. She was a yankee, and as such, she made rolls, brioche (who knew?) and other light, yeasted, risen baked goods... or at least those are the kinds of recipes she saved.

Before starting this project, I was always nervous about making yeasted baked goods. Rolls, breads, even certain types of muffins made me nervous because mine never seemed to work correctly. Either they wouldn't rise at all (looking at you, every pizza crust I've ever made), or they wouldn't taste right if they did (et tu, challah?). But Eleanor seems to have been a specialist at yeasted breads-- since this brioche is maybe the third recipe that I've made from the box that requires a risen dough.

Why, you may be asking, does this matter? Well, here's why: when I set about doing this project, I was dying to know what kind of a cook Eleanor was. Whether she followed directions or did her own thing in the kitchen, whether she even used recipes or if she just made things up as she went along.

I always kind of thought she just did her own thing-- she was no shrinking violet, and she was highly opinionated, so I figured she would have been just as bossy when it came to cooking. But it's starting not to seem that way. She kept meticulous notes on tweaks she made to her recipes-- noting the dishes she used to make certain things, or the time her oven took to cook something. And when it comes to meticulousness, is there anything more fickle than yeast?

Judson helped with the kneading. Those are not my arms.

Making yeast dough requires two things I'm not great at: following directions (just kidding, I'm a total square and great at following directions as long as it's not in the kitchen) and patience (something I am terrible at in all arenas of my life). So maybe the real reason my pizza crusts have always been a bit dense is not due to the foibles of the recipe, but the foibles of the chef. Regardless, on starting this project, I became convinced I would succeed at the recipes, and succeed I (mostly) have.

It turns out, if you just measure out your ingredients in an exact fashion, keep your water as warm as possible without crossing over into 'hot' territory, and set aside enough time for the dough to rise even in your extremely drafty Scottish flat, you can make almost anything. (And when I try to wallow in my self-pity because I live in a drafty flat in Scotland without a 'warm spot' to let my dough rise, I remind myself that Eleanor, too, lived in a house with no air-conditioning, but hers was in central Florida, where the temperature regularly crested 37C/98F before 9am, and so finding a place to get any ingredient down to room temperature would have been just as much of a pain for her.)

So maybe this project is teaching me a couple of things: First of all, Eleanor might have had opinions about everything (remember, she once told my mom I was going to 'grow up spoiled' because my mom was rocking me and singing me a song when I was 6 weeks old), but she knew how to follow directions when the situation warranted it. Secondly, there's not a lot you can't succeed at in the kitchen if you just agree to put aside your smarts, be humble, and follow the directions in the recipe to the letter... or maybe I just got lucky because this is a Better Homes and Gardens recipe from 1978.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. Judson literally ate half of the batch of brioche muffins that we made on the night we made them, because he was so in love with the flavour. I cooked them in a muffin tin because the recipe didn't really advise how to cook them, and I wanted wee brioches like the kind I used to buy in Paris. They were rich and buttery, and didn't even need toppings to be good (though no one would judge if you smeared a wee bit of plum butter on there and took it to work for breakfast every morning for a week). Set aside the time to make these the right way and you definitely won't regret it.

The recipe:

Brioche Rolls

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
Lightly grease a muffin tin.
Dissolve yeast in warm water.
In a medium-sized bowl, combine eggs, butter, and cooking oil.
Add yeast mixture to egg mixture and stir well.
In a large bowl, stir together sugar, salt, and 1 ½ c flour.
Add yeast mixture and beat well.
Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft, silky dough that doesn't stick to hands.
On a lightly floured surface, knead dough 3-5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
Grease the bowl with a spritz of cooking spray and put dough in it to rise, turning once to grease all over.
Cover tightly and let rise in warm place for one hour or until double.
Punch down, shape into a ball, and twist off palm-sized pieces.
Roll the pieces into balls gently, and place in muffin tin.

Yields approximately 15 muffins.

the ingredients:

4 ½ tsp active dry yeast
½ c warm water
3 eggs, beaten, at room temperature
1/3 c butter, melted
1/3 c vegetable oil
3 ½-4 ½ c flour, divided
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

 

Mandarin Barbecued Chicken

'Oh,' you might be thinking, 'mandarin chicken-- this must be a recipe with mandarin juice or mandarin glaze in it.'

But you would be wrong.

'Ok, then it must be an Asian-inspired dish made with miso and scallions and other Chinese flavours.'

But you would be wrong again.

Because this is basically a curry-roasted chicken... with MSG. So, first things first: I've seen MSG at Chinese groceries since moving to Edinburgh. It's sold in bags like powdered sugar, and I get a headache just looking at it. I'm supposed to make each recipe in this box exactly as it's written, but I'm breaking this rule. It's just too gross to include MSG in the year 2015.

Also, I don't know what kind of knives people had in their kitchens in the 1960s, but all of the chicken recipes in this dumb box seem to call for 'broiler-fryer chickens, cut up.' WHO AMONG YOU, dear readers, OWNS A KNIFE THAT CAN CUT A RAW CHICKEN INTO FIFTHS? And before you assume that your knife set will do so, know that I have a pretty sharp set of knives that are relatively high quality, and they can barely cut through any part of a raw chicken. So if you haven't tried it with your knife, go ahead and assume you cannot do so. Maybe chickens back then were made of lesser stuff, or maybe people like my grandmother just kept a sharpened axe in the kitchen for just such an occasion as... making dinner.*

Anyway, this recipe is going to be best if you can figure out a way to cut up your chicken before you cook it, because it'll cook much faster and be much easier to marinate, but I think you could theoretically roast a whole chicken like this-- though you'd probably want to baste it periodically in the oven to make sure it doesn't dry out.

We made this one night when a friend was coming over for dinner, and, although I didn't marinate it all day (it was a Friday, I don't have time for that on a work day, and I seriously doubt Eleanor did either), it was still pretty tasty. The onions on it were definitely the best part, so next time I'd probably chop them a bit more coarsely so they stick to the chicken as it cooks.

Overall, this chicken had a perfect texture-- moist and tender, with a nice flavour combination because of the variety of spices in the marinade. But the flavour was a bit mild, and the skin didn't crisp up in the way that I wanted it to. The recipe is best made on a grill, though, and since we don't have one, we had to settle for the broiler, which is probably at least part of the problem. If you have a grill, this would be a perfect summertime late evening dinner. Paired with a cold beer and a tomato salad (my favourite kind of salad this time of year), you really can't go wrong.

Finally, I haven't figured out how to take very good pictures of meat. It's really tough to take pictures of brown things, you guys. So I'm adding a photo here of Eleanor at some unknown event, with a zillion other people, all in wedding outfits. I can't imagine what this was for, but I like to imagine that it was a giant sextuple wedding, where they were all getting married at the same time (probably this is not accurate). I have other photos of her alone in this dress, so it was clearly an important occasion, but I have no idea what it was. My grandpa isn't in it, and I think it was probably before they met. Eleanor's family didn't have enough money to have sent her to cotillion, so maybe it was someone else's wedding (BUT WHOSE??). I don't know, but it's very glamourous and I imagine that if I was faced with this dress right now, I wouldn't be able to figure out how to put it on... much less fit in it.

Eleanor is at the very far left, with the greatest smirk I've ever seen. (Also I think the two girls in the middle are probably ghosts.)

*I know my mom's cousins have plucked chickens killed on their grandparents' farm before, so maybe this is not so far from the truth. After all, Eleanor did keep chickens for awhile as a result of a science project conducted by my uncle.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. The flavour was great and the meat was incredibly tender, but the skin was not crispy or as flavourful as I would have loved for it to be.

The recipe:

Mandarin Barbecued Chicken

THE DIRECTIONS:

Mix together all ingredients except chicken.
Place chicken in a bowl and pour on marinade.
Cover and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours or up to all day, turning occasionally.
Grill (preferably) or broil chicken about 6 inches from heat source, about 15 minutes on each side or until tender and brown.

The ingredients:

½ c soy sauce (I know. That's a lot of soy sauce in an era when we know how bad sodium is for you. In Britain, all the soy sauce is what would be considered 'low sodium' in the US, and it worked fine, so use reduced sodium soy sauce and you'll be doing your body a favour.)
¼ c orange juice
¼ c lemon juice
Scant ¼ c vegetable oil
1 c onion, coarsely chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1 chicken, cut into 6 pieces

Oatmeal Toffee Lace Cookies

It hasn't been so many weeks since I told you that I found the perfect oatmeal cookie. So when I found another recipe for oatmeal cookies in the box, I was hesitant to make them right now-- how could I improve upon perfection?

Well, the only thing I can figure is that these cookies taste nothing like oatmeal. They don't even have an oatmeal texture, and if they weren't such a royal pain to make, I would be sending each of you, dear readers, a tin full of them today. These cookies are basically just toffee-- there's just a tiny dusting of flour in the entire recipe, and the oatmeal is in there at a 1:1 ratio with the brown sugar, so as soon as they get warm, these basically become an oatmeal-studded caramel that expands all over the cookie sheet in the thinnest lattice, turning golden and toasty as it bubbles.

But, alas. In the words of Smitten Kitchen, I have to put a yellow light on these cookies. Had I tried to make them before starting this project, I would have failed miserably. I say this with some certainty, because three Thanksgivings ago, I tried to make these cookies, which failed miserably because I a) didn't follow the directions, b) didn't have the right equipment, and c) (I would argue) the recipe makes them sound infinitely easier than they are and doesn't mention any of the weird conundrums that I faced.

I feel pretty confident that Eleanor had no trouble with this recipe, though, because I think if she had, there would be amendment notes on it detailing the things she changed... and I know she must have made these, because damn, they're delicious.

However. I literally spent the whole time these were in the oven sitting in a chair in front of the oven watching them cook. The recipe itself even says that 'Mrs. Brown's advice is to never leave the stoce [sic], even if it means missing a phone call.' I don't know who Mrs. Brown is, but I agree with her. Shut off your phone, these cookies require full concentration.

The cookies on the right were removed from the cookie sheet when they were still too hot, which is why they are stupid looking.

But are they worth it? HECK YES. The first tray I made shattered upon being removed from the cookie sheet, but I swept the crumbs into an airtight container and we had them over ice cream the next night, and, if possible, they were even better than on the first day! The second and third trays came off in one piece, but in weird shapes because they go from WAY TOO SOFT OMG THIS COOKIE IS MELTING AND BURNING MY HAND to THIS COOKIE IS MADE OF CEMENT AND WILL NEVER COME OFF OF THE COOKIE SHEET in a window of less than a minute, so you have to work quickly, like a bomb defuser, or a brain surgeon. The good news is that once you've made them they actually stay crunchy for up to three days in an airtight container, provided you don't pack them up until they are really, really cool.

Some tips:

• Make sure your cookie sheet is flat, as this batter will turn to liquid as soon as you place it in the oven, and if the cookie sheet is on an angle, the batter will run. This would seem obvious, but you'd be shocked at the angle at which I usually have to use my cookie sheets because I have the world's tiniest/most Scottish oven.

• Keep a close eye on these at the end of their time in the oven and don't be afraid to leave them in for another minute or two. The middle should be soft, but not sticky or wet, and the rim should be just a shade more brown than the golden middle.

• Upon getting them out of the oven, give them 30-60 seconds to cool without touching them-- then slide your thinnest spatula under one and lift it as quickly as you can. If you haven't let it cool enough, your cookie will squish into a weird oval as a result of the spatula pressing on it. If you have let the cookies cool too much, you won't be able to get your spatula more than a ½ inch under the cookie and you're going to have to chisel the whole thing off in tiny crumbs. The good news is that if you do either of those things, the cookies are still going to taste fantastic, even if they look a little worse for wear.

• The recipe below is the original cut in half, because I was afraid 2 cups each of sugar and oatmeal was going to make a huge batch. Out of the quantity below, I got about 20 cookies, but then only about 15 came off the cookie sheet in a reasonable fashion, so the other 5 turned to crumbs. Plan accordingly.

The verdict:

It's hard not to give these toffee bites 5 spoons because they are just that good. But they are a huge pain to cook and get off of the cookie sheet (though the actual batter is a piece of cake-- pun not intended). If you're feeling ambitious, make these. I give them 5 spoons out of five for flavour, 2 spoons out of five for difficulty level.

This is definitely the weirdest selfie I've ever taken.

The recipe:

Oatmeal Toffee Lace Cookies

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, salt, and sugar.
Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.
Add the beaten egg and the vanilla and stir together.
Place tablespoon-sized dollops of batter far apart on a cookie sheet (no more than 5 per normal-sized cookie sheet).
Bake for 7 minutes, watching carefully, probably from in front of the oven.
Wait 30-60 seconds before removing them from the cookie sheet, but absolutely no more or cookies will not come off the cookie sheet.
Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before storing in a very airtight container for up to three days.

the ingredients:

¼ lb butter
1 1/8 c porridge or rolled oats
1 1/8 c light brown sugar
1 ½ tbsp flour
½ tsp salt
½ egg, beaten slightly (I know, this is a huge pain if you don't have a scale. If you have a scale, use it for this. If you don't, use a small egg or just eyeball it. Nobody's gonna tell.)
½ tsp vanilla