I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
I’ve been known to brag that my compost pile smells like citrus. I do go through quite a lot of citrus fruits in my kitchen, and I’ve never met a type I didn’t like. So, it was no surprise that the new book Citrus: 150 Recipes Celebrating the Sweet and the Sour by Catherine Phipps has a lot of recipes I want to try. And, it’s such a pretty book with a bold, orange-yellow cover and full-page photos of several of the fresh- and zesty-looking dishes. In some cases, the citrus is the main ingredient, in others it’s a necessary flavor component, and the ingredient involved may be the zest, the fruit, or the leaves. I’ll definitely be trying the Barbecued Halloumi in Lemon Leaves as soon as my trees look happy and full of new greenery for the spring. And, the Sprouting Broccoli with Blood Orange Hollandaise is a twist on this sauce that I’ve never thought to try before. The Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Chicken Salad with radishes, carrot, and zucchini looks like a winner, and Roast Vegetables with Feta and Orange would be great as a side or a vegetarian main dish. The Desserts chapter has me craving Mandarin Creme Caramel and Blackberry, Orange, and Orange Blossom Clafoutis. There are also recipes for marmalades, jellies, candied zest and peel, and drinks with citrus. Since burrata always stops me in my tracks and since blood orange season is nearing the end, I had try the Blood Orange, Burrata, and Freekeh Salad.
This salad highlights the blood oranges with pretty slices placed front and center, but there’s also bergamot zest and juice adding flavor to the freekeh. This was my first time using bergamots. They appear late in citrus season, and I feel kind of lucky to have found them the day I was looking. Their fragrance is citrusy-floral and a bit like that of lemon blossoms. If they’re not available, lemon zest and juice is the best substitute. The freekeh was soaked in water, drained, and then cooked with garlic and bergamot zest. Once tender, the bergamot juice was added, and the freekeh was left to stand for a few minutes before being drained. Red onion wedges were sauteed in olive oil, and chard was cooked until just wilted. To serve, the freekeh was spread on a platter, onions and chard were added on top, peeled and sliced blood oranges were added, and pieces of burrata were nestled into place. Last, a drizzle of olive oil went over everything, and I garnished with parsley leaves rather than mint because that’s what I had available in my herb garden.
Blood oranges with burrata is a wonderful thing, and the chard and nutty freekeh were great with that combination. I quickly fell for the flavor and perfume of bergamots which were a lovely addition to the grain. A lot more citrus pieces will be added to my compost as I cook more from this book, and it’s going to smell amazing.
100g / 2/3 cup freekeh 600ml / 2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 tsp finely grated bergamot zest (or lemon zest) Juice of 1/2 bergamot (or lemon) 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 2 small red onions, sliced vertically into thin wedges A large bunch of chard, shredded
50ml / 3 1/2 tbsp water 2 large blood or blush oranges, peeled and sliced, any juice squeezed from the peel reserved 1 large or 2 small burrata A handful of mint leaves Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
This is a very happy confluence of ingredients; smoky nuttiness from the freekeh, earthiness from the chard, a creamy sweetness from the burrata, all pulled together by the fragrant, sweet-sour citrus. The bergamot is purely optional as its flavour is subtle here, but if you can, please do: bergamots are still in season (just) when blood oranges come in, so it should be possible to find them. Use lemon zest instead if not.
First cook the freekeh. Soak it in plenty of cold water for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse thoroughly. Put in a medium saucepan with the stock, garlic and zest. Season with salt, then bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 15–20 minutes until cooked – it should be plumped up but still with some bite. Add the bergamot juice and leave to stand for a few minutes before straining.
Arrange the freekeh over a large platter and top with the onions and chard. Pour over any reserved juice from the blood oranges – there should be a fair bit. Break up the burrata over the salad, then top with the orange slices and mint leaves. Drizzle over a little olive oil.
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I guess I’ve made it a tradition that I bake a somewhat elaborate breakfast bread for Easter. I can handle that so long as I find a recipe that’s just as good to attempt next year. This year, it was a rolled and cut yeasted sweet bread dough filled with cream cheese mixed with poppy seeds and dried cranberries. The recipe is from an issue of Living magazine from several years ago. My best guess is that it appeared in the early 2000’s, and the recipe is not available online so I’ll include it below. The triple citrus part of the name comes from the orange juice as well as the lemon, orange, and lime zest that are included in the dough. The process for making this is exactly like making cinnamon rolls only rather than cutting individual rolls, the dough is only partially cut through and pieces are twisted out from the center. Now that I look back at my photos, I realize I could have done a better job of that twisting. Regardless of the direction of the twists and how the pieces land, it’s a fragrant and delicious coffee cake. The tender, buttery dough makes it easy to pull a piece off the finished loaf, and the flavors will have you pulling at a second piece soon enough.
This breakfast bread or coffee cake is actually pretty simple to prepare, you just have to allow the time for the dough to rise. Also, this recipe makes two loaves so you can either feed a crowd or store the second loaf in the freezer. To begin, active dry yeast was added to warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer. To that, orange juice, two eggs, more sugar, melted butter, citrus zests, and salt were added. Those ingredients were mixed with a dough hook, and five cups of flour were added one cup at a time while mixing on low speed. The dough was turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded for a few minutes. It was then left to rise for about one and a half hours. When the dough had risen, softened cream cheese was mixed with confectioner’s sugar, two egg yolks, and vanilla, and then poppy seeds and dried cranberries were added. Two baking sheets were lined with buttered parchment paper. The dough was cut in half, and one half at a time was rolled into a big rectangle. Each piece of dough was brushed with melted butter followed by the cream cheese mixture, and then each dough rectangle was rolled into a log. Each log of dough was placed on a prepared baking sheet. Then, each log was cut down one side about six or seven times along the length of the dough with the cuts spaced two inches apart. The cuts only went partially through the rolled dough. Each cut segment was turned to face cut-side up with every other segment being twisted to the opposite side. The cut and twisted loaves were covered with plastic wrap and left for a second rise for about 30 minutes. Before being baked, each loaf was brushed with egg wash.
The dough turns a lovely golden brown as it bakes, and the citrus scent filled the kitchen. If the eggs and melted butter in the dough didn’t make it delicious enough on its own, the sweet cream cheese filling takes it up another level in decadence. This is a definite keeper, so I’ll eventually get better at making those twists in the dough.
Triple Citrus Coffee Cake From Martha Stewart Living
makes two 16-inch loaves
1/2 cup butter melted, plus 3 tablespoons butter melted
1/2 cup warm water
2 envelopes active dry yeast or 2 tablespooons
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 eggs, lightly beaten, plus one egg for egg wash
zest of one organic lemon
zest of one organic lime
zest of one organic orange
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
spray oil for bowl
1 pound, or two 8 ounce packages of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup dried cranberries (4 ¼ ounces)
2/3 cup poppy seeds
-In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, place warm water and yeast. Mix to dissolve and let stand for a few minutes until foamy. Add orange juice, two whole eggs, the granulated sugar, 1/2 cup of the melted butter, the citrus zests, and salt. Mix until combined. On low speed, slowly add the flour one cup at a time, and mix until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
-Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Spray a large bowl with spray oil and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the dough to rise for about an hour and a half or until doubled in size.
-When the dough is almost finished rising, add the cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla to a large mixing bowl and either stir together or mix with a hand mixer until smooth. Stir in dried cranberries and poppy seeds until well combined.
-Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and brush the parchment paper with one tablespoon of melted butter. Divide the dough in half, and working with one half, roll it out on a floured surface into a rectangle about eleven inches by fifteen inches. Brush the dough with one tablespoon of melted butter. Spread half of the cream cheese mixture over the rectangle. Beginning on a long side of the rectangle, use your fingertips to roll the dough into a log, and pinch the seam to seal. Place the roll on one of the prepared baking sheets seam side down. Using a sharp knife, cut segments into the dough roll, along one side, at two-inch increments. The segments should only be cut three-quarters of the way through the width of the log. Pick up the first segment and turn it so it sits cut-side up. Lift and twist the second segment so it sits cut-side up on the opposite side of the roll. Repeat with alternating segments along the roll of dough. Then, repeat rolling, filling, and cutting with second piece of dough.
-Loosely cover each loaf with plastic wrap and set them aside to rise for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Uncover the loaves and brush the dough only with egg wash. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes, rotating baking sheets front to back and switching bottom pan to top and top to bottom in the oven after 15 minutes. Let cool before slicing or simply pulling pieces from the loaves.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
Anita Lo believes “there are no true borders in food.” Cuisines are constantly changing and being influenced by different cultures. And, her food is pushing that evolution another step forward. Her new book is Cooking Without Borders, and I received a review copy. In it, she describes her approach to building dishes with multiple points of reference. With a multicultural upbringing and world travels from a young age, she draws on various influences for her cooking style. After first learning classic French cooking technique, she then gained expertise in Korean and Vietnamese cooking. Often, her dishes combine European concepts with Asian ingredients. Despite the array of ideas contributing to each dish, the result is always refined and well-articulated. The recipes in the book include some of Lo’s home-cooking favorites as well as restaurant dishes, and some of them are definitely chef’s recipes. She does make good suggestions for modifications for the home cook whenever the process is lengthy or the ingredients are out of the ordinary. For her fried oysters with buckwheat and caviar, although it sounds like blini might be involved, the buckwheat is actually naengmyum which is a Korean noodle similar to soba. The dish was inspired by a mix of soba noodles and garnishes that Lo experienced in Japan. A fried oyster and caviar add briny flavor in different textures, and there’s a ponzu-style sauce balanced with dashi broth. She recommends more affordable American caviar for this and offers tips for a quick version of the dish made with store-bought ponzu. Like all the recipe descriptions in the book, this one clearly shows her thought process and her vision for the mix of flavors and textures in a unique dish.
Some of the dishes I want to try soon are the slow-cooked salmon with smoked paprika and savoy cabbage, the roasted kabocha and maitake with bitter chocolate, and breast of duck with hoisin and figs. First, though, I was fascinated by a recipe in the Desserts and Drink chapter. The goat cheesecakes with citrus and candied beets is an interpretation of a salad turned into a dessert. Rather than fresh chevre served with roasted beets and a citrus vinaigrette, the cheese became a rich, sweet cheesecake, the beets were candied with vanilla, and the citrus was used both as a fruit salad in syrup and as candied zest. It was a lot easier to prepare than I expected after seeing the photo of the pretty, plated dessert in the book. The individual cheesecakes were baked in ramekins with no waterbath required. Thin slices of beets were candied in a sugar syrup with both vanilla seeds scraped from a pod and vanilla extract. That syrup took on the dark pink color of the beets and reduced as the beet slices became tender. It was then dribbled on the plate as a sauce. Grapefruit, orange, and lime zests were candied in a separate sugar syrup, and then those fruits’ segments were macerated in that syrup. When the cheesecakes baked, they puffed and then settled in the center making a perfect space for the candied beets and zest. The only difficulty I had with this dessert was removing the cheesecakes from the ramekins. The two I unmolded as soon as they were cool enough to handle came out fine, but the ones that were chilled in the ramekins were difficult to remove. My suggestion would be to unmold them all as soon as possible and store them in a roomy, covered container to chill.
Regarding this dessert, Lo suggests that some people may think of it as a mix of a cheese course and dessert. For me, this was entirely dessert. The beets took on sweet, vanilla flavor and complemented the cheesecakes very well. Meanwhile, the citrus was bright and fruity and delicious with the sauce on the plate. This is thought-provoking food which is interesting to prepare and delightful to eat, and I know I’ll learn something new about flavors every time I cook from this book.
I've made all sorts of chutneys and chunky fruit sauces that I've refrigerated and used quickly, but I've never preserved jars and jars of summer fruit with the proper canning method. It seems like I should try it, and what could be better than popping open a jar of homemade berry preserves in the dead of winter? Or, how pretty would it be to have a big stack of gleaming, jewel-toned jars of translucent, homemade jelly on a shelf in the kitchen? I'm one step closer to experiencing those things since I received a review copy of The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. Blue Chair Fruit is a Bay Area jam company specializing in intensely flavored preserves, and the owner, Rachel Saunders, reveals her techniques for the preserving process in this new book. The reader is walked through definitions of jams, jellies, and marmalades, and then the fruit itself is discussed from seasonality, flavor, and texture to acidity and pectin for balancing a preserve. Then, the preserving process is carefully described with information about necessary equipment, sterilization, and cooking stages for different types of preserves. The recipes section offers preserves for every month of the year starting with citrus marmalades in January and moving into strawberry and rhubarb season in March. There's an early summer peach jam with green almonds that sounds lovely, and summer boysenberry jam with lemon verbena. There are jams with berries, plums, figs, and tomatoes, and a fall quince marmalade that I really want to try. In the meantime, since I haven't yet collected all the equipment I'll need for canning, I started with the candied orange peel.
I grabbed some Texas navel oranges and set about starting the process. First, the oranges were halved and juiced. The halves were then covered with water in a stock pot, the water was brought to a boil, simmered for ten minutes, and then drained and that process was repeated twice more. The brief cooking, draining, and cooking again helps to remove bitterness from the orange rinds. Next, the orange halves were covered with water again, and this time, they were left to cook for about an hour until tender. They were drained and allowed to cool, and then the pith and fibers were scooped from each half. A thin layer of white pith remained in each orange half as they were sliced into thin strips. The strips were then cooked with sugar and water for about an hour until the pith sides began to look translucent. The strips were left to cool in the sugar syrup and were then transferred to a wire rack set on a baking sheet where they sat until dry a day and a half later. The last step was rolling the dried orange strips in sugar, and now they could sit for up to twelve months if they had a chance of lasting that long.
They're chewy, bitter, sweet, and full of orange flavor. I can't wait to chop some of them to stir into dough for panettone or place pieces of them on top of homemade dark chocolate bark with nuts and swirls of white chocolate. I'll probably think of some other cookies or cakes to use them in too causing them to be gone far too fast, but this was a great first step in extending seasonal flavors. Now, I need to finally try my hand at canning and filling my kitchen with pretty jars of preserves.
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by Catherine Phipps has a lot of recipes I want to try. And, it’s such a pretty book with a bold, orange-yellow cover and full-page photos of several of the fresh- and zesty-looking dishes. In some cases, the citrus is the main ingredient, in others it’s a necessary flavor component, and the ingredient involved may be the zest, the fruit, or the leaves. I’ll definitely be trying the Barbecued Halloumi in Lemon Leaves as soon as my trees look happy and full of new greenery for the spring. And, the Sprouting Broccoli with Blood Orange Hollandaise is a twist on this sauce that I’ve never thought to try before. The Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Chicken Salad with radishes, carrot, and zucchini looks like a winner, and Roast Vegetables with Feta and Orange would be great as a side or a vegetarian main dish. The Desserts chapter has me craving Mandarin Creme Caramel and Blackberry, Orange, and Orange Blossom Clafoutis. There are also recipes for marmalades, jellies, candied zest and peel, and drinks with citrus. Since burrata always stops me in my tracks and since blood orange season is nearing the end, I had try the Blood Orange, Burrata, and Freekeh Salad. 
, and I received a review copy. In it, she describes her approach to building dishes with multiple points of reference. With a multicultural upbringing and world travels from a young age, she draws on various influences for her cooking style. After first learning classic French cooking technique, she then gained expertise in Korean and Vietnamese cooking. Often, her dishes combine European concepts with Asian ingredients. Despite the array of ideas contributing to each dish, the result is always refined and well-articulated. The recipes in the book include some of Lo’s home-cooking favorites as well as restaurant dishes, and some of them are definitely chef’s recipes. She does make good suggestions for modifications for the home cook whenever the process is lengthy or the ingredients are out of the ordinary. For her fried oysters with buckwheat and caviar, although it sounds like blini might be involved, the buckwheat is actually naengmyum which is a Korean noodle similar to soba. The dish was inspired by a mix of soba noodles and garnishes that Lo experienced in Japan. A fried oyster and caviar add briny flavor in different textures, and there’s a ponzu-style sauce balanced with dashi broth. She recommends more affordable American caviar for this and offers tips for a quick version of the dish made with store-bought ponzu. Like all the recipe descriptions in the book, this one clearly shows her thought process and her vision for the mix of flavors and textures in a unique dish. 
. Blue Chair Fruit is a Bay Area jam company specializing in intensely flavored preserves, and the owner, Rachel Saunders, reveals her techniques for the preserving process in this new book. The reader is walked through definitions of jams, jellies, and marmalades, and then the fruit itself is discussed from seasonality, flavor, and texture to acidity and pectin for balancing a preserve. Then, the preserving process is carefully described with information about necessary equipment, sterilization, and cooking stages for different types of preserves. The recipes section offers preserves for every month of the year starting with citrus marmalades in January and moving into strawberry and rhubarb season in March. There's an early summer peach jam with green almonds that sounds lovely, and summer boysenberry jam with lemon verbena. There are jams with berries, plums, figs, and tomatoes, and a fall quince marmalade that I really want to try. In the meantime, since I haven't yet collected all the equipment I'll need for canning, I started with the candied orange peel.
