Kinfolk Magazine, issue one

Hello there friends!

Tara and Nikole here, with so much goodness to tell. You might remember we’d mentioned Kinfolk Magazine a while back, and we’re mighty excited that today we can finally, finally give you a look.

The magazine is all about the magic of the small gathering; the coming together of those we cherish the most in celebrations big and little, or in the passing of simple hours in their company, and the everyday moments that charm. It was an idea close to our hearts and right up our alley, and we were thrilled at the opportunity to be a part of it.

In an added bonus, it gave us the perfect excuse for a collaboration we’ve long wanted to do. We wrote a story about two friends getting together for breakfast or lunch on a weekday, eaten outside. We sat on the steps in the sun and laughed over cookies and bubbles, messy sandwiches and berries, and it was all pretty grand. We hope you like it, we’re happy to share it with you.

Nathan brought together a stellar group for the project. The magazine is both a print and online endeavour; while the paper edition’s already sold out (!!) fingers are crossed for a second run, and here’s to enjoying the beauty of its pages on their site.

So thanks to everyone for their hard work, we’re beaming to be a part of such a community. Here’s to days like these and the many issues to come.

Kinfolk Magazine, issue one. Hip, hip.

Photographs numbers 3 through 5 by the absolutely spiffy Nikole Herriott, the first two by me.

Every last bit I could

This was the leftover. The stand in, the understudy that usually never gets the spotlight. I made two tarts, one with a pretty, fluted edge, the other roughly, haphazardly patched together with the remaining scraps of dough.

This was, to reiterate, the latter. The afterthought.

Yet, I'm fond of it. I'd even say that its imperfection is its charm. Its saved grace is really through no talent of mine, but rather owed to the recipe for the crust. It's the Whole Wheat Pastry Dough from the book The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread (Wiley, 2008), and it's one to keep handy. My quiche thanks my friend for sending it in my direction.

I'll interrupt myself for a moment, as I can't make, eat, or even consider quiches without mention of her remembrance, that the introduction of quiches and tarts into my life is something I want to attribute to an aunt of mine. The instinct is possibly incorrect, but she has the nostalgic credit.

She wasn't an aunt by blood, but by friendship, one of those people in your life that was simply there, from the very beginning. A thought of her brings the smell of Yardley's English Rose perfume, the particular accent of her voice, and the time she let me dictate from memory a recipe for double chocolate cookies. By that I mean, I was five years old and most assuredly making it up as I went along, but she made the biscuits just as I said, and even pretended them a triumph, even though they were stuck irrevocably to the pan.

That aunt, she made quiches. Sausage rolls too, and we'll get there someday. Her quiches were always the same, or at least in my memory they were, eggs and cream with bacon. Nothing fancy. We'd eat them cold, straight out of the fridge or soon after. Then there would be tea, and maybe a butter biscuit from the navy tin she kept on the kitchen table.

So when I made our lunch, there was bacon involved, with thin rounds of squash and a sweet tangle of shallot, some grated Parmesan for resonant salinity to balance the lull of cream and egg, all poured into a whole wheat crust. We're back to that.

This pastry, unlike those cookies, is an actual triumph; heavy with butter, granted a freshness from cream cheese well matched to the whole wheat flour's gentle nuttiness. The dough goes supple and is quite forgiving as it's worked, which was, beyond my frugality, one of the reasons I thought to cobble together the scraps and use every last bit I could. 

I'm glad I did, because after lunch I found myself chasing the last of the crumbs off my plate with the tines of my fork. Plucking up those evasive fragments with the tips of my fingers as needed. The pastry is afternoon-nap-dream-worthy, the kind I think the best of dreams, as this is one of the best of pastries. I liked it for its subtlety and substance, for its structure of alternating tender and crisp. I liked how it baked up golden with speckles of brown still visible. 

It's a good dough to know. 

******

A few newsy things to pass along, while we're chatting:

A piece I did for Saveur.com, on cakes and decorating. It was such fun to do, and I hope you enjoy it.

I'm rather lucky to have collaborated with someone pretty darn special for the inaugral issue of Kinfolk Magazine. It launches July 15.

UPPERCASE's summer issue will be out soon; Janine put together a slideshow of some of the content, including a glimpse of my contribution - a story on Peach Melba Ice Pops. 

Here's to happy days, friends!

*******

Whole Wheat Pastry Crust
From the book The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread by Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree (Wiley, 2008). Though I've only talked about the pastry today, the book is a wealth of homey, welcoming recipes. The Pecan Sticky Buns are already famous around here.

From the authors: The whole wheat flour and cream cheese give this pastry a special flavour and texture that area perfect complement to our Spinach and Mushroom Quiche filling. This crust is surprisingly light, rich, and tender, so you might want to use the remaining dough scraps to make savory turnovers with any meat and/or vegetable scraps that are hiding in the refrigerator.

Ingredients
146 g / 5.15 oz / 2/3 cup Unsalted butter, cut into 3/4-inch dice
112 g / 4.0 oz / 3/8 cup + 1 tablespoon Cream Cheese, cut into 1/2-inch dice
52 g / 1.83 oz / 4 tablespoons Ice Water
2 1/2 teaspoons Apple cider vinegar
158 g / 5.60 oz / 1 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons Unbleached all-purpose flour
86 g / 3.0 oz / 1/2 cup Whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon Baking powder

Freeze the diced butter and cream cheese for at least 30 minutes. In a small cup or bowl, combine the ice water and the vinegar.

In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the 2 flours, salt and baking powder and process them until they are just combined. Add the frozen chunks of cream cheese and process again for 15 seconds or until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Add the butter chunks and process again for 10 to 15 seconds, until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of peas. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and sprinkle it with the ice water mixture. (If you don't have a food processor, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a wire whisk and rub very cold, not frozen, cream cheese into the flour with your fingers until it looks like coarse meal. Repeat the process with the very cold, not frozen, butter chunks until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of peas. If the butter starts to feel soft, freeze the mixture for 10 minutes before continuing. Sprinkle the ice water mixture over the flour.) Using your hands, stir the mixture, pressing it together firmly until it becomes a cohesive ball of dough. There shout not be any pockets of dry crumbs remaining. If necessary sprinkle in another 1 or 2 teaspoons of ice water. Place the ball of dough on a large piece of plastic wrap, seal the wrap around the dough, and flatten the ball to make a round 3/4-inch disk. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out. This dough may be kept refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen up to 6 months.

Yield: pastry for six 4 1/2-inch quiches or one 9- or 10-inch quiche.

In my book

Go grab a calendar. Circle this coming Saturday with the most attention-grabbing ink you can find. If you start right after we're done here, you'll only be five days away from this chocolate ice cream, the chocolate ice cream, as far as we're concerned today.

It comes by way of one Fergus Henderson, famous of the restaurant St. John and Michelin stars, Nose to Tail, and of parsley salad and marrow bones. And in my book, chocolate ice cream, too.

Boy oh boy, does he ever know a thing or two about chocolate ice cream.

The recipe was in The Observer ages ago, way back in March. In March I wasn't ready for ice cream. Not yet. We were in the beginning throes of the coldest, wettest spring of memory. Darn that rain. Then I saw it elsewhere, only last week, at the exact right time.

I didn't wait. I like you a lot, so I wanted you to know that you shouldn't either.

Let's have at it. The process is the usual for a custard-based ice cream with a couple of essential quirks to make this one marvelous. I'd expect nothing less with such a pedigree. 

It begins with eggs and milk whipped together to frothy, pale lightness; hot, cocoa-stained milk added to those, then melted chocolate. The mix is cooked over gentle heat until it begins to give some resistance to the spoon as you stir.

Many recipes, most recipes, for chocolate ice cream would end there with the instruction to chill and churn the base, and you're done. We, however, have one more step to go. Time for caramel.

Yessiree, caramel. It's easy enough; sugar and water in a pan, cooked to bubbling, deep amber, subdued with a swirl of cream. The combination will sputter and spit quite wildly for a moment, but then the sugar relaxes into the calm whiteness, and, there you are, with a cream caramel. It is stirred into the custard all gets tucked in the fridge.

We wait. The base needs to sit and settle. Two sleeps later the ice cream machine revs up for its workout and churns the custard to the frosty consistency of soft-serve. You could eat it right there. I was tempted to eat it right there. But, no, press on, time for the the freezer. And, bear with me, we wait again. Did I forget to mention that? Three days this time. You might want to push the container all the way back to the far reaches of the freezer as to avoid temptation upon each opening of the door. If you've got a pack of frozen peas in there, put the bag in front of the ice cream and save yourself the heartache.

Then, one day, the wait's over and there's sunshine and a deck waiting for some company. And it's time for ice cream.

It is a grown up ice cream, which is not to say our boys didn't get chocolate mustaches (and beards, fingers, hands and shirts) from eating this out of sugar cones on said back deck, because they did, but moreover to give you a sense of this ice cream's elegant civility. Bright and perky it isn't.

It is densely aromatic, less of milk and more of cocoa bean. It has a musky darkness that rumbles low like a mumur in the back of your throat. The suggestion of bitter, balanced sweetness is mentioned first by chocolate, then the cocoa, then again with the burnt edge of caramel. It's the best kind of companionship amongst them, equal collaborators to the whole.

It is weighty, on the palate and upon the tongue; straight out of the freezer it is like cold fudge, as it melts, it's hard to describe - reminiscent of pudding, although more velvety than that.

This ice cream does not require embellishment or accompaniment. It was, as it was, everything it needed to be. Right there, out back, on that second step I like so much, our summer started. And in five days, yours can too.

Chocolate Ice Cream
Fergus Henderson’s recipe, rewritten from versions in The Observer and Bon Appetit.

For the chocolate custard base
200g dark chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids, chopped
6 large egg yolks
115g caster sugar
500ml whole milk
40g cocoa powder

For the caramel
70g caster sugar
75ml water
50ml double cream

Make the chocolate custard. Place the chocolate in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water, making sure that the bowl does not touch the water. Stir until the chocolate is melted, then remove the bowl from the heat and set aside to cool. 

In a medium, heavy-based saucepan, whisk the milk and cocoa powder over medium heat together until the mixture comes to a gentle boil. Set aside.

Prepare an ice bath and set a bowl in it.

In another bowl with a whisk, electric beater or stand mixture, beat the eggs and sugar together until the colour has lightened and the mixture is thick, around 5 minutes. At this stage, the mixture should fall back upon itself in a ribbon when the beaters are lifted. Whisking constantly, pour the hot milk into the yolk mixture in a thin, steady stream. Return the mixture to the saucepan and whisk in the melted chocolate. 

Cook over a low heat, stirring often, until the mixture thickens. This should take around 8 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Make the caramel. In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir together the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Raise the heat to medium-high and continue to boil, without stirring, until the sugar turns a deep amber caramel, around 5 minutes. Off the heat, gradually whisk in the cream. Slowly and carefully whisk the caramel into the chocolate custard base. Once fully incorporated, strain the custard through a fine-meshed sieve into the bowl over the ice bath. Stir occasionally until the custard is cool, then cover and chill in the fridge for 2 days.

Freeze the custard base in an ice cream machine as per manufacturer's instruction. Once churned, transfer to a clean container, cover and freeze for 3 days to allow the flavours to develop.

Makes 1 litre.

Notes: 

• British double cream has a butterfat content of about 48%. Lacking that, I used a 35% cream without difficulty or complaint. Caster sugar is also sold as superfine sugar.

This asparagus season

If I had shown you the collected plates of our last week or so, it would have made for the most boring slideshow in the history of the world. It's been pretty much one word, four syllables, at almost every meal. 

Asparagus. Daily. There's been no complaints.

There it's been, with oozy-yolked dipper eggs to start the day, shaved into emerald-edged ribbons as a lunch salad, stir-fried with ginger, sesame and soy for dinner. When baking a cake left me with egg yolks left over, I took it as a sign and lickety-split made a herb-specked, lemon-heavy Hollandaise to drag our stalks through.

I was tempted to tell you the way I've liked it best, but it's not much of a recipe. Just a knob of butter melted in a heavy skillet and allowed to begin to brown, then stopped from going overboard by a scant pour of olive oil. In goes trimmed asparagus and another scant pour - water this time - quickly simmering/steaming the stalks to tender-crisp and setting their colour at its brightest. Once the water's bubbled away, the asparagus goes off the heat and onto a plate. There's salt and pepper to finish, along with a squeeze of lemon, an extra drop of oil and broad, lacy shavings of Parmesan. No trick to that. 

And so instead, I thought I'd tell you about a dish that has a bit more going on but shares the same quick time from counter to table. It may not be my full-stop favourite, but it's up there and gaining a following. 

It starts with a winner of a sauce - David Lebovitz's sauce gribiche. Like he says, it's one of those keep-it-in-your-back-pocket recipes that makes something kind of spectacular out of a few everyday ingredients. It's French in lineage, a loose sauce-meets-vinaigrette, with an emulsification of (cooked!) egg yolk and mustard to start, a good measure of olive oil, chopped egg, capers, cornichons and herbs. 

That was where I was heading. Then, thumbing through Canal House Cooking Volume No. 3 - the winter and spring edition from last year - I was reminded of their take on the iceberg wedge; sharp, crunchy radicchio garnished with hard-boiled eggs, scallion and crisp pancetta. It's gorgeous. Their vinaigrette and garnish shares a lot of qualities with sauce gribiche, and that's when I decided to change course and take the best from both.

This vinaigrette ends up eggier than his sauce gribiche, and the cornichons are swapped out for the fresh pungency of scallion - that's the Canal House influence at work. My only original contribution was to fleck the dressing with dried red pepper flakes, which spark here and there.

We ate it at lunch yesterday with nothing else necessary than a slice of toasted granary bread as raft for the spears. The crumb opened up to the spiky, supple dressing, and the crust afforded the dish substantial chew. Use the last of your bread for sopping up all the extra bits and dregs of dressing - be greedy with the bread, I say.

One note on the asparagus itself; you can prepare it however you prefer, but can we talk about matters of size? Go straight for the thicker stalks, the kind that almost require a fork and knife when eating with anyone aside from the closest of company. Dainty, they are not, those sturdy ones.

The fat, juicy stalks really have the most flavour, and it's their fleshy sweetness that stands up to the piquancy of this dressing best. If those spindly stems we often see are thought of as pencil-thin, the sort you'll want here are more the magic-marker variety. 

As with a traditional sauce gribiche, this vinaigrette would be happy to pal around with some boiled new potatoes or a nice bit of fish. Or, to tweak the Canal House example, I'd like it this over grilled wedges of radicchio at the next barbeque. I've got ideas of blanched green beans when they're around.

That said, I've not tried any of those suggestions. We've only gone so far as asparagus and stopped quite stubbornly there. For right now, in this asparagus season that is so quickly passing, that's far enough for me.

Asparagus with Hard-boiled Egg Vinaigrette
Adapted from from Canal House Cooking and David Lebovitz, with thanks.

Ingredients
Kosher salt
2 scallions, white and light green parts separated and finely sliced
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
2 hard boiled eggs, peeled
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/3-1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 capers, rinsed and dried
Approximately 1/8 teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 handful of fresh, flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1 pound thick asparagus, peeled if needed, trimmed and cooked to your liking

In a small bowl, pinch together 1/8 teaspoon salt with the white part of the sliced scallions. Once the scallion begins to release some juice, stir in the red wine vinegar and set aside.

Separate the egg yolks from the hard boiled eggs. Place one egg yolk in a medium bowl. Chop the other egg yolk and egg whites separately, and keep both aside for later.

Mix the Dijon mustard into whole egg yolk until smooth. Using the back of a spoon or fork, beat in 1/3 cup of the olive oil in a thin, steady stream. Once emulsified, stir in the vinegar and white scallions. 

Add the reserved egg whites to the sauce, along with the capers, the chili flakes and most of the parsley. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. It'll be quite kicky. If the sauce seems too thick, loosen with the extra olive oil. 

To serve, arrange the cooked asparagus on a plate. Spoon over the sauce, then garnish with the chopped egg yolk, reserved parsley and scallion greens. 

Serves 2.

Halfway already

Before we get into things, I should explain that button way up there on the left. I'm honoured to say that this site has been nominated in two (!) categories in Saveur's 2011 Best Food Blog Awards, namely Best Food Photography and Best Original Baking and Desserts Recipe (for this Frozen Raspberry Eton Mess). If you'd like to vote, you can head to Saveur.com because the polls close soon -  if you live outside the US and Canada, pretend we're neighbours and pick either country. Your ballot will be counted without trouble.

In other news we just passed the six year anniversary of me writing here. Once again, I can't thank you enough for reading.

Edited, May 13 - the voting's now closed for the Saveur awards, so I've removed the button to save any confusion. I'm grateful for all the support.

*******

My Mum used to make a drink she called cappuccino, and I remember one of my cousins was particularly fond of it. I took it for granted that the funny preparation of coffee was a peculiarity of our kitchen alone because it was unlike any other cappuccino I'd ever seen. I didn't think much of it. In fact, I don't think I've thought anything of it, let alone made it, for at least a decade.

I pity all those wasted years.

Never fear, I'm making up for lost time. Mum's concoction has been my recent addiction and the undisputed star of this morning's late-morning breakfast.

A few weeks back, Prerna mentioned "Indian espresso coffee" elsewhere and it piqued my interest. When I was a child and we were in India, and when home here, my parents made their coffee in stovetop percolator or Moka pot. They later moved to a French press and there may be a small electric maker tucked away somewhere, but I can't be sure of that. We were, as you might imagine, more of a tea-drinking household; the times that a pot of coffee made an appearance were few and far between. 

That said, those rare occasions weren't the only times there was coffee in our kitchen.

My earliest recollection of Mum's "cappuccino" places me at about 10 years old, furiously mixing a blend of sugar and instant coffee powder in the bottom of a cup. In went hot water and milk, and the combination would magically blend then divide, with a layer of thick foam above a rich, milky coffee below. 

In the memory I'm too young to drink the final preparation, but I remember being fascinated by the process. The phenomenon is not unlike the settling of a pint of Guinness, actually - subtract the alcohol and add a (major) hit of caffeine, and you've got a picture of what it looks like.

What Prerna was referring to was exactly that same drink; in a moment, Mum's brew that had been ours alone was all of a sudden shared in millions of Indian memories, and what I took for granted was in fact an (inter)national treasure. 

I feel a tad flushed-in-the-cheeks to be extolling a beverage made with such an enthusiastic amount of sugar and instant coffee, a substance usually banished to the shadows of the baking cupboard. I'll get over it, no worry there, as while this may not be an everyday kind of drink I'll encourage its once-in-awhile presence at the table. If you're a fan of Vietnamese coffee, then you're already halfway convinced. This coffee has the same uncompromising intensity, the same weighty, toasted, caramel flavours that makes Vietnamese so provocatively good. 

To dispel my childhood ignorance, I asked my father about Indian espresso one night after dinner. With a small smile and taking up the spoon I was using to whip up a batch, he told me it was a drink he and his friends used to make to impress girls. Girls before he'd met my mother, even. Scandalous.

According to Dad, an offer to "beat the coffee" was up there with volunteering to do the dishes after a meal. I like that idea, and am tossing my name in for the job, even though my father hasn't lost his touch and still makes it far better than I ever will.

You might consider to do the same, as the effort expended is far outmatched by the accolades that follow. The "beating" is a method as straightforward as you could hope for - while some milk and water heat in a pot, take a cup and stir together instant coffee granules with some sugar, barely dampened with water.

Now's when everything gets interesting; you start to stir and stir with all your might and as quickly as you can muster. As air is incorporated into the mix, it goes first frothy, than fluffy - if ever you've made hollandaise or zabaglione, the coffee behaves much like the egg yolks there. It doubles in size, transforming into an ethereal mass of bubbles - rewardingly smooth, the coffee looks a pale caramel, the same colour as the crema that floats the top of a shot of properly-pulled espresso.

That's the bulk of the work done and dusted, and it only takes a minute or two. After that it's pour and stir to finish the business. 

Mum's away at present. Her return was already anticipated but is now even moreso since we'll be catching up over a cup of her not-so-secret recipe. I've got the date marked on the calendar, and I won't forget the coffee.

 

Frothy Indian Coffee
My family's way, with thanks to Prerna for the reminder and Soma for such a lovely story (and super-helpful step-by-step photos for anyone who needs them). An espresso-style instant coffee is best here. 

Ingredients
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water, plus around 1/2 teaspoon more
4 teaspoons sugar, or to taste, I like Turbinado
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder

In a small saucepan over medium heat bring the milk and water to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a cup or measuring jug, stir together the sugar with the instant coffee powder. Add a few drops of water and stir again. The mixture should look moist and sandy but not soaked.

With a spoon, start beating the mixture vigorously; use the back of the spoon to press the granules against the side of the vessel to help break them down. As you stir, the mixture should lighten from dark brown to clay in colour and begin to thicken. Add a few more drops of water only if needed. 

Once the mixture is past clay and truly pale, smooth and quite viscous (it should behave like softly-whipped cream and ribbon back upon itself when dripped from a spoon), pour in some of the hot milk and stir to dissolve, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the vessel so that no sediment is left behind. Divide the mixture between two small cups, and then divide the remaining hot milk between the two, giving each a quick stir if necessary.

Enjoy hot, or cold over ice. Serves 2. 

Notes:

• A word of caution, beating the coffee mixture can etch the sides of ceramic cups. Keep this in mind, or do as I do and use a Pyrex measuring cup to measure the liquids, then use that again to beat the coffee.