The Harbinger of Spring

After pie, the dessert His Lordship most often requests is pavlova. And, because I adore meringue in all its forms, from cookie to pie topping, the only time I say no is when the weather is so rainy or humid that working with egg whites is a recipe for failure.

Since yesterday was gorgeously sunny and mild, I readily agreed when he made the request yesterday during the weekly grocery run. My agreement was bolstered by the fact that we were in the produce section and I had spotted rhubarb, which finally convinced me that this ungodly winter is finally behind us. As we’ve established, I love all kinds of tart red fruit, but I have a special soft spot for rhubarb (technically not a fruit, but if it quacks like a duck…) because, like asparagus, it’s the earliest spring produce, bringing with it promises of berries, tomatoes, corn and peaches to come.

If you’ve never had one before, I suppose you could describe pavlova as the ultimate meringue. Unlike the cookie, pavlovas are not crisp all the way through, just on the outside. Underneath a thin, crackly exterior, the inside stays melting and soft, like a flourless angel food cake or the most delicate marshmallow. This already-lovely meringue base is then topped with whipped cream and whichever fresh fruit you fancy. It’s usually made as one giant cake-like disk that is served in wedges, but unless I’m making it for a big crowd of dinner guests, I prefer to make individual-sized ones.

These mini-pavlovas were topped with a compote of rhubarb stewed with a bit of orange peel and spiked with Triple Sec, then mixed with uncooked blackberries and strawberries. The berries were obviously not local, but after all those months of cold and snow and misery, I just really needed them. If you’re more virtuous than I am, you can just hang on to this recipe until they start coming up where you are.

Rhubarb-Berry Pavlovas
(Adapted from Mini-Pavlovas in Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess and Stewed Rhubarb in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
Makes 9 individual-sized pavlovas

For the meringues:

4 large egg whites
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white wine or cider vinegar

For the fruit:

3/4 pound rhubarb, sliced in 1-inch pieces
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried orange peel or zest of one fresh orange
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons Triple Sec or other orange liqueur
1 pint each strawberries and blackberries

For the cream:

1 pint heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment.

In a scrupulously clean mixer bowl and with an equally spotless whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and the pinch of salt until firm, but not stiff, peaks form. Continue beating, gradually adding the sugar by the spoonful, until you achieve a satiny meringue. Gently fold in the cornstarch, vanilla and vinegar until just combined.

Using an ice cream scoop or two large spoons, drop the meringue into nine equal mounds on the sheet. Use a spoon to smooth the mounds into round, flat-topped disks around four inches in diameter.

Put the meringues in the oven and immediately lower the heat to 300 F. Bake for 30 minutes, until they’re crisping on the outside but otherwise still pale and marshmallowy. Turn the oven off and leave them for another 30 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool.

While the meringues are baking and cooling, combine the rhubarb, 1/3 cup sugar, orange peel and water in a medium saucepan and simmer until the rhubarb is tender but still intact, approximately 10 minutes. When the rhubarb has cooled to room temperature, hull and quarter the strawberries and stir into the rhubarb with the Triple Sec and blackberries.

In a mixer or by hand with a whisk, beat the cream with the sugar until softly whipped.

To assemble the pavlovas, flip a meringue belly-up onto a plate, and dollop with the cream.  Top with the rhubarb compote and berries.  Serve immediately.

Notes:

Since pavlovas are so popular around here, I generally make enough of these mini ones to eat over the course of two or three days. Once baked, the meringues will keep quite well in an airtight container for that long, and if they do get soft, you can crisp them back up for about 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 300 F and then turned off.

If that’s still too much meringuey goodness for your needs, the recipe can easily be halved to make 4-5 individual pavlovas.

The color on my meringues is a sign that I am long overdue for getting a new oven thermometer. Like meringue cookies, pavlovas should really be snowy white, in homage to the tulle costumes of ballerina Anna Pavlova, for whom the dessert was invented. My oven is having issues in the mid range, because I’m finding it a little too slow from 350 and up, and now it’s clearly too high from 325 down. The browning doesn’t affect the taste, but it does throw the aesthetics off, at least until you pile the cream over it.

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Getting My Ducks in a Row

Well, my spices, actually.

It only took four months, but I finally managed to turn the binful of spicy chaos that followed my last binge at Penzey’s into something orderly, useful, and even a little bit elegant.

After much research, deliberation, and boggling at what people have the nerve to charge for spice storage solutions, what I ended up doing was shifting the whole lot out of the myriad zip bags and little jars into wide-mouthed magnetic tins with laser-printed labels. The tins were then put in orderly, alphabetized rows on a dry erase board, mounted vertically on my kitchen wall. After just one rainy afternoon’s worth of work, everything is now right at my fingertips and ready to be used at will. Every time I flip the light switch, which is right beside my fantastic new spice rack, I am filled anew with a smug sense of accomplishment.

It would have gone faster if I’d bought tins with magnets already on them, like the handful I already had, but I seriously balked at paying three bucks a pop. Instead, I bought three dozen non-magnetic ones for seventy cents apiece, plus two rolls of magnetic tape. A little more work and delay, yes, but when you consider that magnetic spice rack kits with 20 tins are currently going for $120 and up, it was totally worth it.

To celebrate the fact that all my spices are now out where they can be easily used, I improvised a dish of cauliflower, potatoes and peas that called for eight of my freshly-filled, readily-accessible tins to come off the rack. I’m not claiming it’s authentically Indian, but it does combine whole and ground spices common to Indian cuisine and stew and went smashingly with the batch of naan my pride-flushed ego also prompted me to bake. I especially love the crunch of the tiny brown mustard seeds and the lemony zing of the whole coriander.

As impressive as I think my new rack is, I will tease you just a bit by saying this is an intermediate step. I have even bigger plans for spice storage, but it’s going to take considerably more work than this did. You’ll just have to wait and see what I mean.

Cauliflower, Potatoes and Peas with Whole Spices
Serves 4-6

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
3/4 teaspoons coriander seeds
1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon Rogan Josh seasoning
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup frozen peas
Salt to taste

Parboil the potatoes in lightly salted water until just starting to soften. Drain.

In a large pot, heat the mustard seeds, coriander seeds and fenugreek in the oil over medium-high heat just until the mustard seeds start popping. Standing back to avoid the sputtering, stir in the tomatoes and the remaining spices, and cook until the liquid has mostly evaporated. Add the stock, cauliflower and potatoes, cover the pot, and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the peas and continue cooking just until they have warmed through.

Serve over basmati rice, or in shallow bowls with naan.

Notes:

You can vary the whole spices and the vegetables depending on what you have. For example, if I’d had whole cumin seeds, I would have used a teaspoon of them and lowered the ground cumin by the same amount. Similarly, if I’d been out of potatoes, I would have used a can of chickpeas instead.

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Similar, but not the Same

This Sunday baking entry is not exactly unexplored territory, since I’ve already used the same base to make a mocha-flavored cookie — appropriately enough during the last round of being stuck indoors thanks to my winter curse.

Still, I wanted to share it given that my current crop of co-workers dubbed these “the best you’ve made yet”, and because, while the basic inspiration might be the same, they’re actually quite different. The other one is more snappy, with a very strong mocha flavor, while this one is a proper crumbly shortbread, dominated by butter and just kissed with coffee and chocolate. It’s an interesting example of how you can manipulate the underlying mechanics to get distinct, but equally good, results.

These cookies are also a good lesson on how one ingredient can make a huge difference in the outcome. I had my usual rush of impulsiveness during our last visit to the Asian market, and among the items I picked up was a box of rice flour.

Being gluten-free, rice flour gives baked goods a velvet tenderness that you could never get otherwise, no matter how gently you treat the dough and how carefully you avoid over-mixing.

While leaving the shortbread plain lets you focus like a laser beam on the perfection of its texture, I couldn’t resist adding a chopped-up Scharffen Berger Mocha bar, picked up during my annual crazed shopping spree at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal market. The slightly bitter edge of the coffee, coupled with the buttery plushness of the shortbread, makes for a very not-for-kids cookie.

If you don’t have easy access to the full Scharffen Berger line (as I stupidly don’t, despite being in driving distance of the corporate candy overlords that bought them out) you could use any kind of good-quality dark chocolate bar, flavored or not. I suspect an orange-flavored one would work particularly well.

Mocha Chip Shortbread
(Adapted from Ethereal Brown Sugar Butter Cookies in Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook)
Makes 48 1 x 2 inch fingers

1 cup (2 sticks) cold top-quality unsalted butter
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons rice flour
1 3-ounce Scharffen Berger mocha bar, chopped

Line a quarter sheet pan with aluminum foil.

Dice the butter into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the brown and granulated sugars and the salt, and beat on medium until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla.

Whisk together the flours and add to the creamed butter. Mix on medium-low speed just until combined, then stir in the chocolate bits.

Turn the dough out onto the foil-lined pan, and cover with a second piece of foil. Press down on the foil with your palms and fingertips to squish the dough into an even layer. (If you have a second sheet pan, you can place it over the foil and use it to get a really uniform result.) Using two forks or, better yet, a chipper, thoroughly dock the dough at even intervals.

Remove the top layer of foil and place the pan in the freezer while the oven is preheating to 325 F.

Bake until the edges are turning golden and the center looks firm, approximately 30-35 minutes. Cool the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully use the edges of the foil to lift out the shortbread. Using a serrated knife, slice the shortbread into 48 fingers 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. Set the cookies on a rack to cool completely.

The cookies will keep for weeks in an airtight container, although they’re best within a day or two of baking.

Notes:

As with all shortbread, the quality of the butter is key because there is so little to compete with it. Buy the freshest, highest-quality you can.

If you can’t find rice flour, substitute an equal amount of cornstarch, which will give a slightly different but still wonderfully delicate result. You could also just use all-purpose flour, but you’ll end up with a less satiny texture.

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