Alpha Bakers -- Pizza Rustica

"But it's not a pizza!"

Wise words from a friend, as she watched me roll out a rich tart dough with thyme. In fact, she was so concerned that she flipped back through the book to check the picture.

"Nope, definitely not a pizza. That's a quiche."

While its pizza status might be debate-able (this delicacy is also known as a 'ham pie,' I'm told), the tart's appeal isn't up for debate, as long as you are craving a solid rich hit of cheese, sausage, and flaky crust. 

What this pie (pizza) is, is sturdy. Baked in a 9"x2" cake tin, a firm crust surrounds a rich filling of sopressata layered with mozzarella and a ricotta/egg custard. I had slightly less mozzarella than needed so I slipped in a little gruyere and goat boucheron. Whenever I have a party I stash a bunch of leftover cheese bits in the freezer for just this sort of occasion, and I'm working very hard on bringing the freezer back down to a manageable capacity right now, so that worked out well.

I served the pie in conjunction with some buckwheat waffles (yeast-raised, Marion Cunningham-style) and blackberry jam, so it never had a chance with me, but the others who ate it were big fans, and it was so easy to make, transport, and cut, that I will definitely be making versions of it again. Hearty and sturdy.

French Fridays with Dorie: Savory Kek

Just a quick catch-up. Tuesdays with Dorie has been a lot of muffins lately--corn muffins, currant citrus muffins, honey-nut 'brownies' that would have sold much better as honeycake muffins...

French Fridays with Dorie went beyond muffins, into what David Lebovitz swears that the French call 'kek,' a savory quick bread full of scallions, cheese and other nice things. Kek is fun to say. Kek is fun to eat. Actually, I just like to say kek. Kek, kek, kek, kek, kek....

French Fridays with Dorie: Gougeres

Welcome to this week's edition of: Katya Joins Too Many Baking Groups.

This one is French Fridays with Dorie, where we cook from Dorie Greenspan's shiny new book Around My French Table, and we are making Gougeres, the savory version of cream puffs, made from pate a choux, soft shiny buttery eggy dough. Pate a choux means cabbage dough. Which I suppose is no funnier than pate a popelin, or pate a panterelli, both of which it used to be called. Dorie was with me when I made my first choux pastry, and her formula remains solid. For the cheese addition, I used a blended 4-cheese mix that my grandmother bought on sale and gave to myself, my mother, and my aunt. Yes, that's how we do these things.

Perfect for a smorgasboard dinner of cheese, bread, grapes, and vegetables. Good the next day for breakfast.  Pretty soon, I'm going to come up with some kind of clever gimmick for writing about FFwD, which includes savory as well as sweet dishes, so that all my posts aren't just I came, I saw, I conquered, but for now it's just the update, puffy as the gougeres themselves, to welcome in the fall and new cookery-bookery. Fresh bread is in the oven, apple-quince bundt cake on the counter, and fresh quinces on the table. Life, it is good.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: English Muffins

With the addition of a little whole wheat flour, I played this one pretty straight. Earlier English muffin recipes that I've tried have used an overnight ferment, this one is just a straight dough, with a simple rise and proof.They make very good breakfast sandwiches, especially when I use the same ring to shape the muffins and the egg. I love breakfast sandwiches, man.
Also, these tomatoes? We grew them on the roof.

Eggplant Parmesan

I may have mentioned that eggplant has been causing me problems. I love the idea of it, and the feel of those smooth dark oval beasts, but I don't really know how to cook and eat it, beyond a few basics. It doesn't usually enter into my cooking imagination. However, maybe with this one the simplest plan is the best. Grill it. Roast it. Or, go classic and fry it up, douse with cheese and tomatoes, and call it Eggplant Parmesan. With one eggplant already tragically wasted, and two more waiting in the fridge, we had no time to waste, and so we got to work breading (Matt's special blend of corn flour, garlic powder, salt, and I'm not sure what else), and frying, and dumping in the casserole. Marcella Hazan (pictured in book form above the toaster) gave us some guidance, but really, it's not hard to figure out how to do this one without a recipe.
And it is so delicious.

Tuesdays With Dorie - Apple Cheddar Scones

This is the week of the cheese puff and the cheese puffy thing. For Jill's party the other night, I tried my hand at some impromptu gougeres, crispy cheddary puffs that didn't rise as high as they could have, but were scarfed nonetheless. Whether everyone will forgive me for turning on the oven on an overheated night in the middle of party prep remains to be seen. I really have to think ahead a little more about that, my love of sweaty baking notwithstanding.

Luckily, I have temporarily relocated to Northampton, MA, which is not quite so sticky. Today's Tuesdays With Dorie project, Apple Cheddar Scones, is brought to you from my parents' newly retiled kitchen.
These scones are so sticky that I used the option Dorie included and treated them more like drop biscuits, which the recipe resembles anyway (more butter, less cream). Longer meditation on the differences between a biscuit and a scone is clearly needed. I noted an Australian blogger on the TWD blogroll pondering just that, but her cultural equations just threw me into deeper confusion.
The dough is simple, a mix of all-purpose flour and cornmeal, leavened with baking soda and baking powder, lightly sugared and salted, butter rubbed in, buttermilk, egg and apple cider mixed in, and diced apple (I used fresh instead of the recommended dried) and grated cheddar (or Cheddar Jack pregrated mix) mixed in. The whole is then just scooped onto a baking sheet and is in the oven now, smelling good.
Seriously though, how is this not a biscuit?