bitter honey

the cake

 

If there is any one dish that I am known for, it is my coconut cake. When I say known, I do not mean known like the way that say, Jamie Oliver is known. I simply mean that within my circle of friends and family, people tend to remember that I make a coconut cake and that I make it well. Take for example, my stepfather who, after splitting up with my Mother for ten years, upon finally re-uniting with her said to me the first time I visited them in their new home, “Hi Tov, when are you gonna make me a coconut cake?” NotI “It’s been a while”, not “how are you”, but “make me a coconut cake”.

    Then there are the random texts on Saturday afternoon from my best friend Amy that read simply "make the coconut cake.", as if I would even have any way of getting it to her all the way in CT. And the late night e-mails from various unrecognizable addresses. I miss your coconut cake. In a conversation with my most recent ex, whom I now consider a very good friend, he said the only thing he envied my current boyfriend was, you guessed it, my coconut cake.
    

    The secret about my coconut cake is this: I’ve never made it the same way twice. The first time I made it I couldn’t have been any more than twelve years old. It was a birthday gift for my Mom who adores coconut more than any other flavor of dessert there is (yes, even chocolate). Since then I’ve made it so many times that I no longer need to look at a recipe. It was the first recipe I ever “mastered”, and I imagine that if I simply continued to make it the way I did that very first time, it would still taste just fine, but for some reason I can’t seem to help myself. It’s become a sort of long term project. I am determined, within this life, to make the hands-down-best coconut cake that ever existed, ever.

    My recent trip home to the east coast was a perfect opportunity to tweak my recipe just a little bit more for the people who love my coconut cake the best. This time I took inspiration from Smitten Kitchen and used a variation on this cake for the base. Oh, and I made it gluten-free to accommodate my grandmother who has Celiac disease, by simply substituting this for regular flour.

It was a damn tasty coconut cake. Possibly the best one I’ve made yet.

Until the next time, that is.

The Best Coconut Cake (So Far)

I will leave it up to you to use whatever white/yellow cake recipe you happen to like best, although as I said before, I had great success with this one. After years of making this cake I can promise you that the cake itself is besides the point. The real focus here is on the coconut, which I’ve incorporated a number of different ways and which truly ends up dominating the flavor.

2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
2 cups mascarpone
confectioner’s sugar to taste (about ½ cup alltogether)
1 tall, round white or yellow cake cut horizontally in half
or
2 small round white or yellow cakes trimmed so that they fit on top of each other neatly
1 can coconut milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup coconut shavings


Preheat the oven to 325
Mix the shredded coconut with mascarpone in a bowl. Sweeten to taste using confectioner’s sugar (regular sugar leave a grainy texture). Set aside
Place one cake or cake half on a serving platter or cake stand. Using a fork, poke a few holes in the top of the cake. Just a few. You want it to still maintain structure. Open the can of coconut milk and mix well to be sure that the creamy layer on top is incorporated into the more liquid layer underneath. Drizzle lightly over the top of the cake and into the holes you poked with the fork. Be sure not to flood the cake - you want the coconut milk to be absorbed by the cake, adding moisture and infusing it with flavor, but not creating too wet or sticky of texture.
Spread all of the coconut-mascarpone mixture over the coconut-soaked bottom layer of your cake. Use a butter knife to make a smooth, even coating. Then carefully top with other cake/half-cake. Poke a few holes in the top layer of cake as well and lightly drizzle with coconut milk again.
Add the vanilla extract to the heavy cream in a large bowl. Sweeten to your liking with more confectioner’s sugar (I like it just barely sweet - a tablespoon or two). Whip the cream into stiff peaks. You want it a bit thicker than typical whipped cream - think spreadable. Use the cream to frost the cake all the way around. I generally make a mess while doing this and clean it up and smooth it out later.
Toast the coconut in a single layer on a baking sheet, keeping an eye on it so that it reaches a perfect golden brown and does not burn. This generally takes about five minutes. Sprinkle the toasted coconut over the top of the cake. Chill until ready to serve.

 

 

Sunday Perfect

It was Sunday morning and I had everything I needed. Stunning candy-stripe figs; rich, salty bacon; cool, sweet watermelon and the last of summer's deep-red cherries. Still, it wasn't quite brunch. There was something missing. A great big, gaping hole on the plate in need of filling. 

Pancakes? French toast? Too pedestrian. I wanted something special. Something that wouldn't pale alongside my pristine late summer produce.

That's when I remembered that funky recipe I had recently come across in Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite. It was for some sort of pancake that supposedly  puffed up when you baked it in the oven. While I couldn't possibly imagine what that would come out like, I was intrigued enough to try it. Plus, I remembered noting that the recipe called for only a few basic ingredients; a definite plus on a Sunday morning!

For those of you that also have trouble imagining what a puffy pancake actually looks like, here is a photo:

I must admit, it is infinitely satisfying to mix a few simple ingredients in a bowl, pour them into a hot skillet containing an unholy amount of butter and have the whole thing emerge from the oven as something else entirely. It's that perfect kind of kitchen alchemy where the end result far exceeds it's humble components. I would recommend that you make the recipe for that reason alone if it weren't for the fact that it tastes amazing as well. Ethereal and comforting at the same time, it's a difficult thing to describe, except to say that I have craved it absolutely every day since making it. Rich with butter, faintly spicy from the nutmeg and barely sweet. It tastes as much like breakfast as it tastes like dessert. It tastes like brunch. It tastes like Sunday.

David Eyre's Pancake (adapted from Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite)

I've changed this recipe only slightly. Mostly because I find it impossible to add nutmeg to something without adding vanilla as well. I also swapped out the lemon for orange because I thought the softer, sweeter orange juice would work well with all the warm flavors at play here.

3 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch kosher salt

1 medium orange

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

 

Preheat the oven to 450. Meanwhile beat the eggs lightly in a medium bowl. Then add the milk, flour, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt and mix until a slightly lumpy batter forms. Zest the orange into the batter and mix again briefly.

Melt the butter in a large oven-safe skillet over medium heat. When the butter has melted add the batter to the skillet and transfer to the prehated oven immediately. Bake until the pancake is "puffed" and browned around the edges. 

When the pancake is done, remove from the oven and sprinkle with confectioner's sugar. Return the skillet to the oven until the sugar has melted slightly. Drizzle with juice from the zested orange and serve immediately!                                                 

Edith's, Cabo San Lucas

    While we were in Cabo San Lucas, we enjoyed a really phenomenal meal at a restaurant called Edith’s. Tucked down a quaint little side street, we almost missed it. I had read about Edith’s, coming across the name in nearly every search I did for places to eat in Cabo. I was hoping we would end up there at some point, but not knowing my way around town and not wanting to limit our explorations to one single isolated restaurant, we simply told our cab driver to drop us off at the marina. We walked for nearly an hour, but still hadn’t found a restaurant that felt right to us, so we decided to venture off the beaten path, towards the beach. We nearly turned back when the area turned seemingly residential, but then we spotted what looked like a small restaurant and lo and behold, it was Edith’s.
    Walking into Edith’s is like entering an alternate universe. Lush and green, surrounded on all sides with plant life so that you can barely tell if you are inside or out. There is a large palapa with an assortment of antique looking lanterns hanging from it, illuminating the bar area. Every detail seems explicitly designed to transport you to a place that is altogether calmer, friendlier, more nuanced and infinitely more enticing than the stark commercialism of the marina area.

The service was absolutely flawless. Helpful, enthusiastic, friendly,and well-informed while still managing to never cross that fine line between attentive and obtrusive. Our servers seemed to know instinctively when we were in need of something. There is a great debate happening now about the new “casual” style of service that so many restaurants have been embracing. Personally, I do not think that service needs to be formal in the slightest, but I do think that it needs to be warm, genuine and most importantly, welcoming. The servers at Edith’s were neither the most casual I have encountered nor the most formal but they made us feel as if they were truly appreciative of our patronage.
    Now, there are those who would argue that for the escalated prices they charge at Edith’s, they should be grateful. It’s true that Edith’s would never be considered cheap eats, but for the only organic produce we’d seen in Cabo, for the freshest seafood I have ever tasted, for the perfectly grilled steak, we had no problem paying higher prices. For anyone who finds joy in pure amd perfect ingredients, Edith’s has much to revel in. The simply grilled shrimp I ordered were obscenely large, succulent and tasted like nothing but the cleanest, sweetest ocean. They were served simply, with rice, beans, tomatoes and avocado with a light drizzle of olive oil and a scattering of basil leaves. Peter had a mesquite-grilled bacon-wrapped filet that was so rich and so well-prepared it entirely made up for it’s own contrived nature; despite the fact that it was served with “mushed” potatoes piped out of a pastry bag, it was simply one of the best pieces of grilled meat I have ever tasted.
By the end of the meal, slightly tipsy off mango margaritas (prepared with fresh, in-season mangoes of course) we found ourselves in a sort of daze. The food in and of itself would have been enough to content us for the rest of our trip, but then there was everything else around us; the soft, golden light from the lanterns hanging in the trees; the buzz and hum and chatter of all the other people in the restaurant enjoying the same transportive experience as us; the gentle inquiries of our waiter insuring that our every need and desire was accounted for. It was as if we were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere infinitely far away from every tiny worry of our daily lives. It was as if we were really, truly on vacation.

 

getaway

About a month and a half ago we took a short vacation to Cabo San Lucas. Now, before you start making judgements about what a tourist I am, and how there are so many more authentic vacations that one could take let me just say, I needed a touristy vacation. I've done the authentic thing many a time, but that's not what I wanted this time. Not after spending six months straight at work with no vacation time, not even a long weekend (I'm usually off Sunday + Monday which means the holiday just skips right over me!). What I wanted from this particular vacation was to lay by a pool and drink pina coladas. And that's exactly what I did. 

We even went so far as to say as to stay in an inclusive resort. A quick word about the food in our resort: it was almost too horrific to mention. We did venture out a bit though, and had the privilege of enjoying one of the best meals of my entire life (more on that later). Aside from that, everything was perfect. We swam and slept and got sunburned and swam some more. Going back to work afterwards was nothing short of brutal. 

Now, we're on the East Coast on an entirely different sort of vacation. There are weddings to attend and family to spend time with and schedules to keep, but I wanted to take a second to revisit those peaceful days we spent in Cabo. We haven't had any quite as peaceful since. Then again if we had, perhaps my memory of them wouldn't feel quite so special.

the sweetest

I've been finding myself irresistibly drawn to the idea of simplicity. Afternoons spent lying in the grass reading a book, evenings spent at home watching the sunset, outfits comprised of nothing but a dress and some sandals. It makes sense in the summertime, when the days themselves are so perfect barely anything is required to make them enjoyable.

Naturally, this philosophy has extended to my food choices as well. Lately, the meals I've been preparing have been almost sparse in their lack of ingredients and preparation. Tomatoes dressed with nothing but olive oil and salt (not even lemon or vinegar), peaches eaten over the sink with juice dribbling everywhere, the insane pistachio sorbet from Scream, which boasts just four perfect ingredients.

Oh, and the strawberry jam from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain. I've been making it weekly.

With just two ingredients (three if you add a flavoring), this jam is the essence of simplicity. It starts with perfect summer strawberries, plus a bit of sugar cooked briskly over high heat, and somehow ends up tasting more like perfect summer strawberries. This is nothing short of a true blessing when you live just a short walk away from the Lakeshore Farmer's Market, where they sell the most perfect summer strawberries. 

When the jam is done cooking, you can either leave it as is or enhance it with different flavorings. We tried stirring the finished product with sprigs of oregano as the book suggested but found that the sticky jam just got stuck in all the leaves and in the end, we couldn't actually taste the oregano anyway. But we absolutely loved it with some grated lime zest. The acidity in the lime added just the right amount of acidity to perk up the strawberries, and was more exotic and complex than the traditional pairing of lemon with strawberry.

Even if you decide to leave it plain, this jam is still a sublime way to eat strawberries. Bright and sweet and juicy and simple. Exactly the way they should be.

 

Strawberry Lime Jam (adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain)

I always thought jam was complicated, demanding strange ingredients like fruit pectin and requiring proper canning and about one-million steps. But this jam is literally, one of the easiest things I've ever made. It's even easier than the non I told you about a couple of weeks ago. As if it wasn't already easy enough, I halved the recipe to make it even easier (less hulling and less cooking time!). And you know what? I like the halved recipe even better. The strawberries hold more of their shape and the whole thing ends up almost more like a chutney or a compote than a jam.

-1.5 lbs strawberries, hulled (we used Chandler strawberries that we bought at the Farmer's Market which were insane - small, floral, barely sweet - but I imagine this jam works well with most strawberries, as long as they're not those pale, giant monsters you can buy at the supermkarket year round.)

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 lime

Combine 1/4 cup water with the sugar in a large, heavy pot and let sit. Meanwhile, hull and trim the berries, leaving the smallest ones whole and cutting any larger specimens into bite-sized pieces.

When the strawberries are trimmed, place the sugar-water mixture over high heat and watch as bubbles begin to form. First, you will see tiny bubbles mostly around the edges but soon the mixture will come to a full boil with big bubbles scattered all across the surface. Add the strawberries to the pot immediately before the mixture starts to brown.

Stir the strawberries over high heat for about 15-20 minutes. First, they will release a lot of liquid and become intensely fragrant. Keep stirring. Eventually, they start to break down and the liquid begins to thicken.

In the original recipe, you are instructed to keep a plate in the freezer, which you dollop teaspoons of the jam onto when you think it might be done. If it thickens on the plate, you've got yourself some jam. You are also instructed to use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature (210 means it's finished if you were wondering) but I actually do neither. Instead I use my intuition to tell me when the jam is just a little less thick than I'd ideally like it to be. It does thicken a bit when cooling.

However you decide to measure it, when the jam is at your ideal doneness, pour it into a bowl and set it over an ice bath to cool. Stir it a few times while it's cooling to let all the steam escape. Once it's mostly cool but still slightly warm, grate the zest of one lime directly over the jam. Stir the lime zest in and chill the jam in the refrigerator with a layer of plastic wrap sitting firectly on the surface of the jam to insure that a skin does not form. The next day, you can divide it up into jars if you like, where it will keep for approximately two and a half weeks in the refrigerator or up to a year in the freezer.

appearances can be deceiving

    So now that I’ve taken the plunge and begun posting ugly pictures, you may have noticed I can’t seem to stop myself! In truth, I have quite the collection of ugly photos of good food, and this decision has been ultimately, so freeing in that I can now tell you about all those delicious meals that didn’t photograph quite so well. The meal we ate at Plum is a perfect example.

    First off, I just have to say, Plum is one of the ugliest restaurants I’ve ever been to. Peter made the comment that he thought they were trying to make it look like the inside of a plum. Which makes sense, and actually even kind of sounds like a good idea. The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t translate so well. Plums are dark, and the space they’re in is pretty industrial. Dark plus industrial does not create the most inviting of atmospheres to enjoy a meal in. Think hard wood benches, cold concrete walls and surly looking black-clad waiters. Not my cup of tea, and certainly not the best of conditions for attempting to take photos discreetly with an outdated point-and-shoot.
    Still, I would gladly spend any amount of time there. In fact, if Plum was located in an abandoned insane asylum in the middle of nowhere, I’d probably still go. Yes, the food was that good.

    
    We started with a bowl of fried onions, because you know, who can resist fried onions? These were puffy and golden, like the fake fried onion chips you can buy at the supermarket, only they tasted like real onions. Caramelized and deeply savoury onions. Seriously, I could have eaten five bowls of these things.

    After the fried onions came toasts with chicken liver mousse, which tasted like toasts with chicken liver mousse - delicious, but familiar and expected.

    The next dish we had was stellar - sardines with various assorted pickly vegetables, on top of some sort of sauteed green that was unbelievably buttery and luscious.

    But the star of the meal was undoubtedly, the burger. I initially read about the burger at Plum a couple of months ago, when Peter and I were on a mission to find the best burger in Oakland. “There’s this new place called Plum, “ I told him excitedly, “And they have a burger that’s made of out of beef cheeks and oxtail!!” He got really quiet and didn’t say much, which is what he does when he doesn’t like an idea of mine but doesn’t want to say so. So, I dropped it. By the time I suggested we eat there  a few months later, he failed to make the connection. Since the burger is only actually listed on their late-night menu, I was able to order it off-menu, without him being any the wiser as to what it actually contained. By the time I told him later that night, it was irrelevant. We were both already in firm agreement that it was the best burger we had ever had, and nothing was gonna change our minds.

    Words cannot even begin to describe how rich and juicy this burger is, it practically melts into the bun. Adorned with minimal toppings, it arrives looking like any other burger you’ve ever had. It looked so commonplace in fact, that when Peter asked if I wanted to take a picture of it I said no, because who needs another picture of a burger? But this is not just any burger, and I ended up regretting my decision later that night.
    Although, the burger was decidedly our favorite part of the meal, the dessert was certainly no letdown. Listed on the menu as a cherry-chocolate cake, it arrived looking like this:
A couple of blond crumbs and some sauce smeared across the plate. But oddly enough, it tasted intensely like chocolate and cherries, rich and deep and pretty much exactly how I wish every chocolate cake tasted.
    By the time we finished dessert, I was no longer preoccupied with the hideous decor. My mind was on other things - like how glad I am that Plum  is just a short walk from my house and how sometimes the best things in life come in the most unlikely packages.

how do you make a perfect day?

A couple of weeks ago I had the perfect day. You know the kind of day I’m talking about. All my favorite songs came on the radio, lights turned green as I drove right through, my hair behaved from morning all the way until I came home from work. And then, right on cue, I made the perfect frittata.

 Not that it’s exactly difficult to make a frittata. I mean, you beat some eggs, saute some meat or veg or whatever, pour the eggs in, maybe add some cheese or herbs and then run the whole thing under the broiler. Simple and easy. But what this method usually produces is a tasty weeknight dinner, and what it produced on this particular day was more like a miracle.
It was perfectly golden brown on the outside, with a creamy, almost custard-y interior. The baby zucchini I sauteed were meltingly soft and tender, but still held their shape. The whole thing was dotted with just exactly the right amount of salty feta to provide the perfect counterpoint to the cool herbaceous yogurt sauce we ate it with.
All in all it was a brilliant success, and one that I think could be easily replicated with a bit of attention to detail. Now if I only I could say that about the perfect day....

(This is the perfect example of a set of pictures that didn't quite come out the way I wanted them to. I had no idea, when throwing together a frittata for a simple weeknight meal that it would come out so well I'd want to photograph it. By the time it came out of the oven it was starting to get dark out and we were starving, so I just snapped a few quick shots. If anyone had any pointers on how to take better photos in low light, I'd love to hear them!)

 

Zucchini Frittata with Lemon-Herb Yogurt

-3 baby zucchini sliced into ½-inch disks
- ¼ large onion or ½ a small onion, sliced lengthwise
- about 1 tbsp olive oil
- 4 large eggs
- handful of parsley, chopped
- 3 ounces of your favorite feta or chevre, crumbled into irregular pieces
- ½ cup greek style yogurt
- zest of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp chopped chives

Saute the zucchini and the onion in the olive oil in a medium-size ovenproof skillet over med heat until they’re just starting to color. Meanwhile beat the eggs with a little salt and pepper so the white and yolk are mixed but no quite uniform. When the veg are ready, pour the eggs into the pan and as the edges start to cook, gently lift them with a fork or spatula to allow some of the uncooked egg to slide underneath.
At this point, turn on your broiler.
Sprinkle half of the parsley over the fritatta and all of the feta. When the frittata is starting to brown on the bottom, move the pan under the broiler. Check it continuously to be sure it doesn’t burn. When the eggs are set and the edges of the feta are turning golden brown, remove the fritatta from the oven.
Add the lemon zest, chives and remaining parsley to the yogurt and mix to combine. Serve the yogurt spooned onto slices of the frittata or on the side.

perfectly imperfect

Last weekend we drove down to Santa Barbara to visit Peter’s family, who are seriously, some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. When we first started dating I used to think there was no way that he could be so normal and well-adjusted. That is, until I met his family.  If I grew up around such warm, friendly, laid-back folks I might be a bit better adjusted, too!

Peter mentioned a couple weeks before that he wanted to cook a meal for his family. He also mentioned in a separate conversation that he wanted to try his hand at making pulled pork, but wasn’t sure when we’d have enough people around to make such a big meal for. It didn’t take us long to piece the two together.

We used Homesick Texan’s recipe, for the pork, the sauce and the buns, but the coleslaw that we made was all mine. A mash-up of a few favorite recipes that I tweaked and twisted until I found a combination I liked. All in all, it was super easy, if slightly time-consuming. His family was incredibly appreciative, even before we finished cooking, thanking us again and again for taking the time out to cook for them. When we all sat down to dinner, the unanimous consensus was that everything came out beautifully. It was Peter’s sister-in-law that paid us the biggest compliment though, when she asked for the recipe for the coleslaw, not once, but twice during the course of our meal. When someone likes something that you made so much that they want to go home and make it themselves, you know it was good.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to enjoy this praise as much as I should have. Instead I was thinking what a perfect opportunity for a blog post! I mean, if I’m going to type up the recipe anyway...except that I didn’t take pictures. I guess I could take them now, but everything’s half-eaten, plus I don’t even have my SLR and they’ll come out badly and I’ll probably make everyone at the table uncomfortable if I’m snapping away trying to get a good shot....

 

Eventually, I just grabbed my point and shoot from my purse and took a couple quick and discreet shots so as not to bother anyone. And then I thought some more. About whether or not I could edit the photos to look better, about whether or not I should just do a post even though the pictures weren’t the greatest, about where I want to draw the line when it comes to picture quality. What I came up with is this:

I’m a writer first and foremost. I always have been. The fact that I want to have a food blog with pretty pictures on it has given me an opportunity to learn more about photography - and I really like it! - but it’s secondary to the fact that I want to share a genuine account of my food experiences, the moments that meant something to me. Unfortunately, there’s not always a photo opportunity that coincides with those moments. As rewarding as it is when a photo comes out well, and as much as I enjoy sharing that, I’m not a pro. This is a learning experience for me and pretending I’ve already got it down pat isn’t going to fool anyone.

So, I’ve made an executive decision to share what resonates with me, whether or not that includes a perfect photo. I’d rather be sincere about my strengths and weaknesses than limit one by limiting the other. Plus, if you decide to make this coleslaw, I guarantee you it will come out perfect, even if the photos didn’t.

Perfect Coleslaw

I use the Cook’s Illustrated technique for making coleslaw, where you draw all the extra water from veggies by salting and allowing them to drain in a colander before mixing with the dressing. This time I constructed the dressing around a base of all greek yogurt. The pork we served it with was very rich, and I wanted something cool and creamy and not-too-heavy to offset that with. If I were serving it with a leaner meal, say grilled fish for example, I might use half-mayo instead of all yogurt. Feel free to adjust to your particular taste.

- 1 head cabbage (red or green both work equally well)

- 2 large carrots

- 1 bell pepper (again, any color will work fine)

- 1 small onion

- 3 tbsp. salt

- 3 tbsp. sugar

- 2 cups yogurt, mayonnaise or a combination of both

- ½ cup of dijon mustard

- 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

- 1 tbsp. whole mustard seeds

- ½ cup chopped parsley

Quarter the cabbage, remove the core and slice diagonally into the thinnest strips you can manage. Repeat with the bell pepper and the onion. Put all vegetables into a large bowl. Grate the carrots using a box grater and add to the vegetables in the bowl. Sprinkle with the salt and sugar and toss to combine until the vegetables start to release water. Place in colander over a bowl or in the sink and allow to drain for at least one hour and up to three.
Make the dressing in a large bowl, combining yogurt or mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar and mustard seeds.
When vegetables are done draining place on top of a large kitchen towel. Roll the vegetables up inside of the towel like a burrito and twist the ends of the towel in opposite directions to extract moisture from the veg, as if your wringing out a washcloth.
When you’ve extracted as much moisture as you can, add the veg to the bowl with the dressing. Sprinkle with parsley and toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

 

how lucky am I?

One night in the very beginning of our courtship, my boyfriend and I returned to his apartment after a night of drinking. 

"I'm hungry," I complained, as I usually do after consuming a sizable amount of alcohol. 

"Don't worry," he told me, "I'll take care of it." He returned a short while later with a plate of toasted bread slathered in butter and honey.

"I made this," he said.

"You're proud that you made a piece of toast," I snorted.

"No," he said, "Like I made the bread. You know, from scratch."

Now that, that was impressive (and quite possibly one of the reasons I continued to date him.) I cook everything from scratch and even I don't make my own bread. 

Since then, he's made me countless loaves of bread. Grainy breads, sweet breads, seeded breads, buns, rolls and all other manner of baked and starchy things. The way it goes in our house is that I cook and my boyfriend bakes. Being that this a habit I benefit greatly from, I've tried to encourage it as much as possible. So, for his birthday this year, I bought him a copy of Tartine Bread (we love Tartine) and almost every week since he's produced two perfect, gorgeous, round breads using Chad Robertson's complex and exacting, but totally flawless recipe.

One week, instead of making two breads, he turned half of the dough into a focaccia which he covered in paper-thin potatoes and shaved parmesan. 

Gorgeous, simple and so, so delicious.

the simplest things

 One day, when it was still kind of cold outside, my boyfriend and I were having company for dinner and we couldn’t figure out what to make. Overwhelmed by the glut of winter produce provided in our CSA we decided to consult The Internet, where we stumbled across a recipe on Smitten Kitchen for curried cauliflower and potatoes. Perfect. Curry on it’s own, however was not enough, so with 15 minutes to spare we ran to the mega-grocery/healthy-foods-store/mall down the street for some naan. Unfortunately when we arrived we found that the spot where they used to carry freshly baked breads was now home to a large display of overpriced organic spa products, and the bread selection had dwindled to include only a few baguettes, some sourdough and a couple of blueberry muffins. We finally found naan in the pre-packaged bread aisle, and despite it’s questionable appearance we took it home and baked it for our guests. When it emerged from the oven we were sad and embarrassed to find that what we bought at the store was nothing like naan. In fact, it bore an uncanny resemblance to cardboard, and it tasted like it, too. The end.

If only we had known how to make non, that story wouldn’t have had to come to such a tragic end. I know, I know, non totally sounds like some gimmicky knockoff of real naan that one might make in their microwave or something, but I assure you that it’s not and that we do not even own a microwave. I found the recipe in another vintage gem, Russian Cooking, published by the same folks who published The Picture Cookbook. According to them, non is a traditional recipe made in Uzbekistan. Being that Uzbekistan is so close to India and that the two recipes bear some very signifcant similarities I will acquiesce that non and naan are probably cousins of some sort. But non is a formidable dish in and of itself as well, make no mistakes about that.

First of all, it’s simple. I might even go so far as to call it The Simplest Recipe I Have Ever Made. At the very least, it’s in my top five. But for it’s simplicity it is not at all lacking in flavor. Infused throughout with the perfume of onions sauteed in butter, this bread boasts a soft, gentle umami flavor that is nothing short of addictive. It lacks the elasticity of traditional Indian naan, but is no less effective a vehicle for soaking up sauces and soups. I would not hesitate to serve this with an Indian curry, but I think it would be equally appropriate with a thick Tuscan white bean soup or a steamy paella. 

Best of all, in the time that it takes me to run to the market for pre-packaged bread, I could make this recipe twice.

Non (adapted from Russian Cooking)

7 tablespoons butter

1 cup finely chopped onions

3/4 cup lukewarm water

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups all-purpose flour

 

Melt the butter in a skillet and saute the onions in the butter until soft and translucent but not yet browned. Combine remaining ingredients with the onions and butter in a large mixing bowl to create a stiff dough. If the dough feels too sticky, add more flour. If it feels too dry, moisten with a bit of extra water. 

Divide the dough into sixteen equal pieces and form into balls by rolling between your hands. Preheat a skillet over high heat. Flatten the balls of dough into thin disks, about the thickness of a piece of naan. When the pan is hot, add one round of dough and cook on both sides until charred in spots. Repeat with remaining rounds of dough.

Transfer the bread to a rack to cool. Serve immediately.