A Series of Attempts at a Post on Pie-Squashes

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Several Attempts to Write a Post Comparing Squashes for Pie

Beware, it has Chipotle powder.

It would be more ideal to write this comparison of pie-squashes after having tried the allegedly perfect variety, Blue Hubbard, but I can't get my hands on one. The squashes thrown indiscriminately into bins outside of the supermarkets in town never include Blue Hubbard. What I have tried will have to do, then, because let's be honest: By the time I find a Blue Hubbard, I won't want to write a comparison anyway. (At this point Blue Hubbard's inaccessibility has me elevating it to some kind of edible angel of pie-baking.)

Thus far this season I've tried Buttercup, Delicata, Pie Pumpkin and Golden Acorn.



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Pumpkin Pie Round 2: Pie Pumpkin vs Golden Acorn

Golden Acorn

• 3 cups cooked squash puree
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar

Pie Pumpkin

• 2 cups cooked pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons water

The Devourer of Small,
Unsuspecting Creature's almond
flour gingersnap crust (with
molasses)

This week I tried making two other varieties of squash into pie, Pie Pumpkin and Golden Acorn. Why Golden Acorn? Because, sorting through the squash bins at Shop 'N' Kart, its label read "delicious baked, microwaved or in a pie," and none of the others (Green Kuri, Kabocha, Acorn, Carnival, Delicata, Butternut, Buttercup) had anything about pie.



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Let us return to the method I used to favor--asking inappropriately speculative questions of food (although the bananas turned me down) and walking far out onto the limb of looking too hard for profundity. What makes good pumpkin pie? To some it is something that doesn't look like a pumpkin at all, but by virtue of the versatility of the term may be called pumpkin, and comes in a can. To others the orange tone of the fruit's skin is proof of the pie. Still others care only for the pie's taste--whatever tastes best. But what is best? Are we searching for an ideal here, and every good taste is orbiting it? Or is taste as blind as it feels? I could tell you, for instance,



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TDSUC's pie

I found a Green Hubbard (apparently it's "Green" not "Blue" as I once thought), and have taken it home with me. Not that I was looking anymore, but there it was. They are rumored (by one website and by my brother who once made a pie from one he was given as a kind of payment) to be the ideal squash for pie. Therefore my own easily persuaded personal mythology promises that a mountain of delicious pies will be scooped from the flesh of this giant. It is heavy, and not as warty and irregularly formed as I was led to believe they are. I estimate that this one squash could make four small pies.

It seems pointless to omit the Hubbard from my comparison of pie-squashes, so I will have to delay until I bake it into pies.

Left: Pie Pumpkin, Right: Golden Acorn

Pie Pumpkin Pie

Golden Acorn Pie

rolled oats, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon

Golden Acorn filling

Oladi and Grilled Zucchini (later)

ingredients

I have to get a couple things out of the way.

1. You know what's good? Toast.
2. One cannot survive, it turns out, by sheer pluck. (Except in the filums.)

There. Sometimes I just have to get the declarative out of my system. These shiny sentences (okay, really not so shiny) just must be put down, however pointless.

I also have to say I find that as the weather gets colder I want to cook more. I find myself cooking new things, because, well, I am bored and stumble into things on the Internet. For instance, oladi. What are oladi? Russian kefir pancakes. Although some recipes I found called for sour cream or buttermilk. It's all roughly the same image--small pancakes made from fermented dairy products.

batter

Most every site skips the kefir part in their English translation of their name though, choosing simply "Russian pancakes." I will of course turn this molehill into a mountain of linguo-cultural powerplays. I know you count on me for this sort of thing. English has a word, "pancake," hence there is a category of things called pancakes, of which "Russian pancakes" are one. There are pancakes all over the world of various forms. "Pancake" offers us a way of seeing all these as variations on a theme. In France they do it that way, in Scotland that way, in Russia that way, and so on. Even dosa are on the Wikipedia page for pancake. It appears that all that is needed to be a pancake is to be cooked on a relatively flat surface heated from below and to be themselves relatively flat. It is a versatile word. Those Russian things can be called pancakes as well as those dry, horrible things one gets in IHOP. But one wouldn't call the Russian kind simply "pancakes"--this is a special pancake. Oh lord--what am I trying to get at with this tiresome rhetoric? That perhaps in some universe not permeated by English, oladi are their own thing, and not a subset of pancakes. But the cold war is over, and the "Traditional Russian Food" blog that is the first Google hit for "oladi" declares "American recipes are my new passion!"

take one

Some of you are perhaps laughing and rolling your eyes that I'm seeking some "Traditional Russian Food" idyll of otherness, defending oladi as a Thing when I don't even know really what they are. Well, let's move on to exhibit two, the ingredient that defines oladi's difference and requires "Russian" to be tacked on to "pancake"--kefir. How do you say kefir? Being one of those annoying people who tries to pronounce foreign or even foreign-looking words correctly, I had always pronounced it "kehfeer". At some point I discovered that everyone else pronounces it "keefur". I won't bother defending my pathetic way of saying it, but I will say that "keefur" sounds like some kind of Americana--like one could, rather than getting a milkshake with your burger or hot dog, you could get kefir. It sounds, I don't know, hammy enough, drawly enough. Somehow it sounds not like a weird health food item at all, but something almost lude in its ordinariness, some kind of greasy staff of life. My point being that sounds matter. But sounds do not echo in a vacuum, either--in that sense "Russian pancakes" is true enough because all I hear in "oladi" is some kind of slavic-sounding word, and only that because I already read that they're Russian.

take one

Here is another way of looking at it: I made pancakes (for the fourteen millionth time), but this time I made them with kefir (ooh la la), enabling me to have a five-hundred-word wank about "oladi" and English translations thereof.

Well, anyway. Let me tell you: Do not attempt to follow the recipe in the first Google hit for oladi. Leave that to poor schmucks like myself. You, not being a schmuck, will probably recognize the problem with this recipe immediately from the ingredient list:

• 1 egg
• 1 pt kefir = 0.5 liter
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• pinch of salt
• 7-8 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda slaked in vinegar

take two

Yes, that's 1 pint kefir (of course, you may wonder, as I did: U.S. or Imperial pint, neither of which, by the way, is actually half a liter), one egg, and 1/2 cup of flour. The batter is almost entirely kefir. That's like trying to pan-fry a yogurt parfait. (As a side note, yogurt might be another substitution for kefir, but for reasons I don't fathom, a wrong one. If I made pancakes from only yogurt, eggs, flour, and baking powder, they would come out horribly flat, dense, uncooked, and pudding-like on the inside. Pancakes made with kefir on the other hand can be made to be fluffy, I promise.) It sputtered like someone's effervescent sick in the pan--rather rude of it to do on the shiny cast-iron pan I cleaned for the occasion--and burned almost immediately. Despite being nearly ashen, the exterior was not crisp, and the interior was goo. For some reason, I ate it.

the photo from Traditional Russian Food

Also for some reason (well, actually, that's doubtful) it was only at this point it dawned on me that this recipe might be a bit dodgy. So I took immediate resuscitative action: I cracked another egg in there, and another half cup of flour. Still they hardly rose and their texture could hardly be called "cake". Another half cup of flour, and another teaspoon of lemon-juice-soaked baking soda. (I forgot to mention that this was the most unfamiliar part of this recipe: baking soda with vinegar poured over it. But I chose to use lemon juice, because I don't know--vinegar + pancake = ew?) Hallelujah, I had finally arrived at something resembling a pancake, and even resembling the pretty photos of golden discs that had drawn me to this recipe in the first place. It was too bad I didn't have any raspberries, rustic baskets, or unidentifiable green herbs. I would write down the recipe that actually worked, but I have unwittingly encrypted the proportions in the fact that I had already poured out some unknown portion of the batter before adding my extra ingredients. But basically it would be the second Google hit, which I turned to for guidance.

It's a bit late to tell you anything about grilled zucchini, isn't it? Well, except that the deck where the grill stands is now too covered in leaves, dog shit, and bits of paper and plastic that the dogs have decided to chew for grilling to be an appealing proposition.

take two

take three

    

take three

Here's my recipe.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Let me tell you about everything I won't be telling you about in this post. I will not tell you about cinnamon bread pudding with lemon-whiskey sauce. I will not tell you about mushroom sugo, which is what I had planned on making for this post. I don't remember how exactly I landed at the recipe page, but for some reason I had to make it. Maybe it was because it's the opposite of the simple tomato-butter-onion equation. It has everything--mirepoix, wine, mushrooms, tomato sauce, beef broth. The expense of the ingredients I needed to buy to make it persuaded me to make something else. I have too much food at home, not too little, and the prospect of buying tons of ingredients to make something that only I was going to eat seemed a bit absurd. Of course, what I did make was as labor-intensive as the sugo was expensive.

There is something a bit creepy about how I find myself approaching this blog: I feel that I have to make something new and exciting to post about. I would say this is just out of desperation for content, but no, usually I have plenty of other things I could write about, but instead I feel I have to put effort into something new to have permission to write these blog posts. As if somehow the effort put into making the thing is readable in what I write about the thing. God forbid I be lazy--it would show!

So instead I am lazy in other ways. The sweet potato gnocchi (because I had two sweet potatoes on the counter) recipe I wanted to use, chosen because of its lack of egg or egg yolk, which I am told yields softer gnocchi, called for straining the fresh ricotta with a sieve and a piece of cheesecloth for two hours. Not having either of these things, nor wanting to take another two hours, I searched for a recipe without eggs that used unstrained ricotta. I found it, but the first recipe cut a corner that this second one didn't: microwaving the sweet potatoes instead of baking them. Which took about twelve minutes. I have to say, making gnocchi went surprisingly quickly.

To be honest I'm sick of brown-butter-sage-cream sauce, but for once it seemed like the best possible sauce for these gnocchi. Sage and sweet potato (or pumpkin) go very well together, and gnocchi are lovely drowned in dairy fat. Actually, now that I think about it maybe the high-priced, secretive bistro with their own garden down the road has the right idea with gnocchi: Serve them in a light, almost soupy sauce of herbs, butter, and sauteed vegetables. The problem with cream sauces is that they only amplify gnocchi's richness. Which would be wonderful if served with something else, (something stewed, perhaps, and not overly rich), but on its own its difficult to eat very much of.

The ricotta is supposed to give gnocchi a desirable texture (not gummy, but fluffy). That was what I was most excited about this recipe. I had always made potato gnocchi with potato, flour, and an egg. The egg is supposed to be the inferior but easier way to make gnocchi. I can’t remember why. Maybe the dough is more difficult to handle without the egg?

I suppose I could do the whole “I will describe what I made in sensuous language” thing. They're orange pillows of delight--something like that. They were yummy, but I think maybe gnocchi should not be served alone. Or... Well, the most easily palatable way I've ever had them, actually, was with the tomato-butter-onion sauce. The gnocchi were not that great (dry packaged), but the sauce complimented them rather than doubled them. However, I'm not sure how well sweet potatoes would go with tomato sauce. Sweet with sweet? What would be the ideal sauce for sweet potato gnocchi?

They taste a bit like pumpkin pie (it must be the nutmeg), with sage. Maybe sage doesn't go with pumpkin and sweet potato after all. Who knows. What goes with anything else anyway?

 

 

 

Drumsticks with Dates

There was only one time on this blog when I focused on perfecting a single dish, Tarte Tatin. And even then I was not so much attempting to perfect a single recipe as I was exploring variations thereof. I am habitually scattered. After Tarte Tatin it seems that where cooking is concerned I want to try many things, and not try, try again the same thing.

Hence while I have been cooking the same core ingredient (chicken drumsticks--they’re cheap) over and over recently, there has been very little work involved. I just try something different every time. What I try is largely dictated by what is around: lemons one day, cherry tomatoes another, and today, dates. The beauty of these things is transient. It lies in the coalescing of an improvisation into something that tastes good, miraculously. Subtlety and discernment are out of the picture. Those finer qualities only take form and may be tasted through repetition. But these dishes, unless they are a disaster, are the best thing at the moment they’re served. Very rarely do they happen again. Yet I write recipes for them.

5 chicken drumsticks
1/2 onion
1 small carrot
~15 pitted dates
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
~1 teaspoon salt

Two hours ahead of time salt both sides of chicken drumsticks--a generous pinch for each side of each drumstick--and let sit on a plate to warm to room temperature. In a small bowl pour lemon juice over pitted dates, add cloves, cinnamon, and black pepper, and mix together with a spoon. Slice onion half in half against the grain, and then chop into small pieces with the grain. Slice carrot in half lengthwise and then chop both halves into small pieces. Set oven to 450 F. Oil a small square baking pan, place onions and carrots in the pan, and put it in the oven. In a large saucepan on medium-high heat with a bit of cooking oil, quickly brown both sides of drumsticks (this should only take a couple minutes per side). Move drumsticks and date-lemon-spice mixture to baking pan, mix everything together in pan, and let it continue to bake at 450 F. After twenty minutes, flip over drumsticks, stir vegetables, add 1/2 cup water, and continue baking. When drumsticks are done and the bottom of the pan has turned to a thick sauce, it is done.

Soup of Leftovers and Throwing Stuff in the Oven

Let’s talk about how meals happen. Because we are sitting down to a nice chat, and you’re the most indulgent listener ever, just dying to hear whatever half-baked spiel that crawls out of my mouth. You see, dear reader, for the most part making food happens out of desperation for me. I am horrible at planning ahead, and when I’m busy as I have been recently, I do the cognitive equivalent of grabbing whatever is within reach. Or I literally grab the nearest things in the kitchen. At such times, some basic forms of cookery are necessary frames to keep it all from getting too unmanageable both mentally and logistically. The past two days indicate that apparently I have at least two such shortcuts on hand: make soup of leftovers, or throw things in the oven. Probably I don’t have them on hand or in head at all, but somehow, thankfully, they happened.

Soup is probably the most well-trod way of using up leftovers. A lot of various things suddenly become commensurate when thrown in a pot of water or stock. I made soup of leftovers because I saw refried beans, fried kale, cooked ground beef, half an onion, a tortilla, and some mushrooms in the fridge, and I thought “soup!” And of course because it’s me, before any water came into the picture I browned onions, mushrooms, and garlic in some oil. And there was quite a bit of chili powder. And some possibly ill-advised cumin. (I couldn’t help but think of the overpowering odor of Rufus’s chili.) I know, these details outside of a recipe have you rapt, don’t they? Little did you know I’m trying to snuff you out in a blizzard of Irrelevant Facts.

A tangent: I actually have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to seasonings. (Or, well, anything really, but seasonings especially.) I am either falling into strange habits, experimenting blindly, or being minimalist (salt, pepper). The thing is, I only understand how flavors go with other flavors in the negative. If I’m putting things together I’m thinking sure, I guess this might taste good together, maybe. But suggest to me a combination and often you’ll get a response of “ew,” or an extremely ill-masked dubious look. I apologize for this particular knee-jerk of mine.

Anyway, throwing stuff in the oven seems initially like a wonderfully lazy option. But I always end up babying the stuff. Tonight the stuff was pork chops, onion, red pepper, and mushrooms. Pork chops cook quickly, apparently, because they were done in about half an hour, at which point I thought nooo they must be browned! and turned the oven to broil for five minutes. Then I put them on a plate, and continued to bake the soupy vegetables. Of course, I may as well have put them in a pan on the stove for all the stirring I did. Must’ve opened the oven five or six times. The problem was that the vegetables released a lot of water, thus stewing the pork chops rather than roasting them, and thus no sear. Maybe pork chops roasted with vegetables is just not to be. The only viable method I can think of is to suspend the poor things on a wire rack above the roasting vegetables, and basting them in the vegetable juice a few times. But that just sounds wayyy to involved. Although it can’t really be more involved than what I did this time.

Sorry, no recipe. Come on, you don’t really want a recipe for Soupy, Overcooked Pork Chops With Roasted Vegetable Topping, do you? There was once a time when this blog was about perfecting techniques and recipes. It has since devolved into me babbling about whatever the hell I feel like, sometimes connecting it to what I happened to have cooked recently. The defining change is that intentionality has left. I no longer cook things to post them on my blog. I cook what I cook, and sometimes take photos to keep the possibility of blogging about it open. In this case I forgot to take a photo of the roasted things, and instead you just get these photos of the uncooked ingredients arranged in the pan to go in the oven.