Pimento Cheese Popovers

It was a roasted green beans with sesame seed dressing recipe from Brown Sugar Kitchen that turned me into a big fan of Tanya Holland’s. That seemingly simple dish was so surprisingly delicious, as was everything else I made from the book, that I was hooked. I was delighted to find her new book Tanya Holland’s California Soul, of which I received a review copy, was also packed with great ideas. This new book shares the stories of several Black culinary entrepreneurs from California. Holland turns to these makers for the best, freshest ingredients for her California-style cooking. I especially enjoyed reading about Black Cowboys in California as well as about Antoine Ellis and Cedric Jefferson who operate Compton Farms offering beef, chicken, sausage, and eggs. Four chapters of recipes correspond to the seasons and reflect her local-sourcing through the year. For each season, there are salads, mains, breakfast dishes, vegetable sides, breads, and sweets. I’m already looking ahead to the summery Cornmeal Dough Pizzette with Grilled Beefsteak Tomaotes, Red Onions, and Whipped Goat Cheese. Our local tomatoes will be here before you know it. Until then, the Smoked Trout Spring Salad with Lemon-Mint Vinaigrette featuring fava beans and asparagus will be perfect. Also in the spring chapter, the Buttermilk Muffins with Cinnamon-Cardamom Streusel sound fantastic. It’s nice to see a good variety of plant-based recipes too like Heirloom Red Beans with Farro and Poblano-Red Onion Relish, Stuffed Sweet Potatoes, and Barbecued Pulled Tofu Sandwiches. From the winter chapter, I didn’t get to the Mustard Barbecue-Roasted Quail yet, but I think that dish could cross seasons as could the Dungeness Crab Beignets. I feel like I should wait for fall, though, for the Fresh Gingerbread Cupcakes with Molasses Buttercream and the Brown Butter “Red Velvet” Beet Bars with Sour Cream Frosting. I was tempted by several of the baked goods in the book, but the first one I made was the Pimento Cheese Popovers. 

The pimento cheese was made first. As I often do, I mixed plant-based “dairy” with regular dairy. I shredded cheddar made with milk from pastured cows and used plant-based cream cheese. Also, for the first time, I used Truff hot sauce with a bit of truffle flavor and became instantly hooked. Those ingredients were mixsed with Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, paprika, minced jalapeno, onion, garlic, pickles, and I added chopped pickled jalapeno. For the popovers, the pan should be heated in the oven while the batter is made. Milk, eggs, salt, and flour are all that’s needed for the batter. It was whisked until frothy. The popover pan was removed from the oven, each cup was brushed with oil, and the batter was added. A spoonful of pimento cheese was added to each cup. The popovers baked at 450 degrees F for 15 minutes and then 15 minutes more at 350 degree F. When they came out of the oven, they were removed from the pan, and a small hole was cut in the bottom of each to allow steam to escape. 

I'm no stranger to savory popovers. I’ve made a shrimp-filled version before too. But regarding pimento cheese, I didn’t really grow up with it. I remember encountering it often once I moved to Texas. It seemed to appear as a non-meat option for sandwiches here and there, but I was always a little ambivalent about it. I can say that this version of pimento cheese is definitely my favorite I’ve ever had, and putting it in a popover is genius. Now, I need to decide what I’m making next from this book.

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Shrimp Popovers

I’ve never visited Charleston, South Carolina, but after hearing the Lee brothers describe the fresh oysters and fish of the waterways, the variety of locally-grown fruits and vegetables, and the rich cooking traditions of their hometown, I hope to get there someday soon. Matt and Ted Lee recently taught a class at Central Market Cooking School, and I attended with a media pass and received a copy of their latest book The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen. I posted some photos from the class on my Facebook page. The book brings together classic, iconic Charleston dishes, with updates in some cases, and stories of their origin. I had never heard of the liqueur called Rock and Rye which is a Charleston favorite. It’s made with rye whiskey and candied oranges, and I can’t wait to make it this winter. Other classics include dishes like Deviled Crab, Four-Pepper Collards, Peach Upside-Down Skillet Cake, and Shrimp and Grits. During the class, the brothers explained how Shrimp and Grits has changed over the years. Originally, it was a simple dish of shrimp cooked in butter with salt and pepper and served over plain hominy grits. Over the years, tomato found its way into the sauce with the shrimp, and then one restaurant after the next added new and different ingredients to personalize it in various ways. The version they shared includes tomato and bacon but otherwise keeps the complexity in check. The grits are made with milk and butter but no added cheese. It’s an interesting journey to follow a dish backwards to where it began and note its changes over time. The Syllabub has an interesting history as well. In Charleston, it was originally served more like a drink and always with rosemary which grows prolifically there. The night of the class, we were served an updated, layered syllabub of whipped cream with Madeira and fresh strawberries. 

After the class, I started flipping through the book and the Shrimp Popovers immediately caught my eye. It’s a straightforward recipe for popovers, but a spoonful of shrimp butter is placed in each cup of batter before baking. They smell delicious as they bake and puff up to full height, and they come out of the oven light and airy with crispy edges all around. The full recipe of shrimp butter in the book makes a lot more than you need for the popovers, so I made a half portion of it and still had enough for two batches of popovers. The quantity I made included a half pound of shrimp which were briefly boiled in salted water and then cooled, shelled, and deveined. The cleaned shrimp were combined with four tablespoons of butter, a little salt, and a pinch of sugar in a food processor and pulsed until no lumps were visible. The shrimp butter should be refrigerated for about an hour before using, or it can be stored in the refrigerator for up to four days. For the popovers, a cup of flour, one-half teaspoon of salt, a pinch of sugar, and I added a pinch of ground cayenne were sifted together before a cup of milk, two tablespoons of melted butter, and two eggs were whisked into the mix. The popover pan was heated in the oven for the last few minutes as it came to 450 degrees F. I brushed nine of the cups with melted butter before pouring in the batter to fill each cup about two-thirds full. A spoonful of shrimp butter was added to each cup, and the popovers baked for 20 minutes. 

The popovers are perfect when just cool enough to handle, but they can also be reheated for a few minutes before serving if baked in advance. And, there are several suggestions for using any extra shrimp butter like spreading it on toast or biscuits, stirring it into grits, or tossing it with pasta. Until I get a chance to visit Charleston in person, I’m happy to continue getting acquainted through the food in this book. 

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Orange Popovers

I suppose I can’t say that I’d never made popovers before. I did make mini popovers in a mini muffin tin a couple of years ago, and technically, you can make even full-sized popovers in a regular muffin tin. But, what I’m showing here today were my first, proper popovers made in a popover pan. I had clipped this recipe from Food and Wine back in September of 2009, and one thing led to another as it often does in my kitchen, and I only recently acquired a popover pan so I could try this. The effort is so minimal and the result so lovely, there are sure to be many, many popovers in my future. How often do you just whisk a few ingredients together with no need for a mixer and no complicated steps and end up with golden, crisp little breads that are so airy, light and delicious on the inside? The orange zest was an added benefit to their flavor, and adorned with a simple berry jam, they made my morning for a few days in a row.

You start with two bowls. In one of them, whisk together eggs, sugar, orange zest, milk, and melted butter. In the other bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Then, whisk the wet ingredients into the dry, but just until only small lumps remain in the batter. That’s it. The cups of the popover pan were brushed with melted butter, and the pan was warmed in a 425 degree F oven for five minutes before each cup was filled halfway. The popovers baked for 30 minutes and puffed and browned.

The flavor, the texture, and even the aroma while these baked, were more complex than the process of making them. I was amazed that such a simple technique produced these delicate yet crisp morning treats. They were divine warm from the oven, and re-heating them the next day and the day after that worked fine too. Now, I can set about altering the flavor or making some just plain or trying a savory version. My new pan will definitely be getting a lot of use.

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Blue Cheese Popovers

On Monday, I mentioned a celebratory dinner party and went straight to discussing dessert. Today, I’ll backtrack and describe the hors d’oeuvre course. We toasted with a Louis Bouillot blanc de blancs sparkling wine and whetted our appetites with blue cheese popovers and herb-marinated green olives. I found the mini popovers in Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook. I’ve used this book many times over the years and have come to depend on it. The chapters are organized by shapes or styles such as skewered, stacked, or stuffed. There are meat, cheese, and vegetable options throughout, and several of the spiced nut variations have become perennial, holiday favorites of mine.

The genius of these popovers is that the batter needs to be chilled before it’s baked so it’s not just convenient but also necessary to make it the day before. I crumbled a Roquefort cheese as small as I could into the milk and melted butter batter which sat in the refrigerator overnight. Unlike baking full-sized popovers, the pan does not need to be pre-heated. A mini-muffin pan is used, and the batter is spooned in to fill each cup. They pop up nicely, hold their shape well even as they cool, and they can even be re-heated which I discovered when we snacked on the leftovers.

Served warm, these little, bite-sized morsels had a light, golden crust on the outside with pillowy, moist, and savory insides. The amount of blue cheese used here provides just a mild pungency. To my taste, I would actually consider increasing the amount to push that flavor forward. But, if blue cheese isn’t your thing, try these simple, tidy popovers with gruyere or parmigiana reggiano for your next cocktail hour.

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