Vogz: December 2007 Archives

In preparation for the morning after New Year's Eve, we've been scouring our brains and books for something new and different. What we came up with was a newfangled application for an 80-year-old organism: Madam Yellott's heirloom sourdough start. Meagan’s used this sourdough start to make some of the best cinnamon rolls we've ever gorged upon...so we thought of making something a little more savory.

Once you get your hands on a solid sourdough start, this recipe is a snap and infinitely variable. Stuff the dough with whatever you like: Kale and Garlic, Chard and Roquefort, anything will be awesome.

Happy New Year!

Dough

1 cup wet sourdough start
1 egg (optional, but somewhat essential)
1 Tsp. salt
1 Tsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. baking soda
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup canola oil
1 Tbs. Brewers yeast

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands.

2. On a (very) well floured surface, knead the dough with vigor for about five minutes.

3. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin (or a pint glass if you haven't one) to form a large rectangle, with the dough approximately 1/16th of an inch thick.

Filling

3 Tbs. butter (or vegan margarine)
5 shallots, peeled and sliced thin
1/4 cup cream sherry
2 Tbs. Sherry wine vinegar
1 cup of picked and chopped dill
1 cup shredded aged cheese (we used Roncal)
Salt and Pepper

4. Brown those shallots! Toast them dry in a nonstick pan or a cast iron on medium high heat, and then add the butter. When the butter is bubbling and just starting to brown, crank the heat to high and add the sherry and the vinegar. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, about five minutes.

5. Spread the sherry butter shallot goo all over the giant dough square on your counter. Make sure to spread evenly all the way to the edges.

6. Apply the dill and the cheese in a similar fashion; evenly distribute all the way tot he corners of your dough sheet.

7. Sprinkle salt, grind pepper all over the thing. and pre-heat your oven to 350.

8. As if it were, that’s right, a joint: carefully roll the rectangle into itself. start at the bottom and curl inwards until you have a bulging log. Use a sharp knife and slice your rolls off of the left side of the log. You can make them as thick as you'd like, ours were about 1.5" thick.

9. Gingerly place the rolls side by each in a greased (with butter) baking pan and bake for approximately 15 minutes. You want the edges of the rolls to brown.

Beverage: Black Flag Imperial Stout
Soundtrack: Inca Ore's Birds in the Bushes

We like to file this recipe adaptation under the ‘My-kid-just-went-vegetarian-what-do-we-make-for-Christmas-dinner?’ category. Because that’s exactly how we started making it. After all, back in the ’90s, before Food Network and Google booted the Joy of Cooking, the conundrum of cooking for a vegetarian at holidays usually meant dusting off the Moosewood Cookbook. In our case, mom seized on some god awfully named recipe for “Nut Cheese Balls.”

But ever since, a loose adaptation of that recipe has stuck with us. It’s basically a dish of nut and cheese patties twice baked and topped with a béchamel sauce. It’s fatty and far from vegan, but for those who eat dairy, or make exceptions for the holidays, it’s one more great anti-Tofurkey entrée — like a stuffing, fake meat cutlets and eggnog all baked into one… Stuffing Cutlets… Stufflets.

Nut-Cheese Balls

1 1/2 cups walnuts, ground
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1 Tbs. dried sage
1 Tbs. dried thyme
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1 cup organic whole milk
2 cage-free, veg-fed eggs

1. Pre-heat your oven to 370 degrees while you prepare your nut-cheese mixture.

2. Using a food processor or blender, grind your walnuts to a fine powder and place mixture in a large mixing bowl. Next, shred the cheddar and combine with breadcrumbs to the mixing bowl. Wash and chop parsley, add it too. Season mixture with sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands.

3. Now add a cup of milk and the two eggs, mixing thoroughly.

4. Grease a deep baking pan with olive oil or cooking spray. Spoon out large balls or medium-sized patties of the nut-cheese mixture. Place them in the baking pan like you would do cookie dough.

5. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until crisping at the edges but still gooey to the touch. Set aside, still covered, until béchamel sauce is prepared.

Bechamel Sauce

4 Tbs. butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tbs. flour
2 1/2 cups organic whole milk (warm)
1/2 white onion
6 whole cloves
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. cayenne pepper

6. In a medium saucepan, put the butter on medium heat and add minced garlic. Saute for about five minutes.

7. Once butter bubbles have subsided and garlic is smelling nutty, make a roux by adding a tablespoon of flour at a time, whisking thoroughly to keep from over-clumping. Once all flour is added, slowly whisk in warm milk about half a cup at a time.

8. Cut a white onion in half so that the petals stay intact as one piece. Take the cloves and punch them through the outer layer of onion so they stick embedded in it. Add your onion half, complete with cloves, into the liquid. Season with nutmeg, thyme, salt and cayenne pepper. Bring liquid up to a slow boil and turn down heat, simmering for at least 15 more minutes.

9. When ready to finish dish, pour béchamel sauce over top the baking pan of nut-cheese patties. Sauce should almost cover them, but try to save about a half cup of warm béchamel for added garnish. Bake for another 20 minutes or just until sauce is bubbling. Serve with a squirt of fresh béchamel on the plate.

Beverage: Great Divide’s Old Ruffian Barleywine-style ale
Soundtrack: Fiery Furnaces’ “Slavin’ Away”

There are few perceivable pillars of French cooking that are as widely and voraciously loved as scalding hot onion soup cloaked in a blistering layer of melted gruyere. Like many of the epic French dishes that cannonnize the cuisine of rural folk vegetarians usually remain wholly uninvited. How does one mitigate that beef stock in every single recipe of the gooest of soups?

Simple: Beer.

After trying small batches of all three colors fo the French tricolore, we settled on Chimay Blue; a dubbel style beer thats a houshold name for boozers. We also went too far in trying an earlier version of this plot...it was bad. But the Grade Reserve, or any other basic Dubbel, can become a super substitute for reduced animal gore. The malts and sugars eaak out a strikingly similar flavor when combined with all the wonderful juices of way to many onions.

Soup

2 Tbs. of butter
2 Tbs. of extra virgin olive oil
3 large onions halved and sliced thin
6 cloves of garlic
4 shallots
2 cups of Chimay Grande Reserve
4 cups of vegetable stock
4 bay leaves
6 sprigs of thyme
½ tsp ground white pepper

1. Heat a medium sized pot on medium heat. Add the butter and let it blister.

2. Add the onion and cook uncovered. Let them sit for about four minute and then stir. Repeat until the onions have all begun to brown.

3. Add the olive oil, garlic and shallots and stir in the same fashion as before, one every five minutes, until the garlic an shallots have caramelized.

4. Add the beer, crank the heat to just shy of high. Let the beer boil off until there is ½ as much beer volume as onion volume.

5. Add the stock, bay leaves, thyme, and white pepper. Cook until the liquid has reduced by about two finger-widths. Taste the soup and add salt to adjust. Cook for at least an addidional 20 minutes before garnishing (below). In an ideal world, you should let the soup sit a day before serving it.

To Serve

4-6 slices of a crusty bread
2 cups shredded gruyere cheese

Keeping it Vegan

The same crusty bread
1 Tbs. of brewers yeast for each slice of bread
1 Tbs. of extra virgin olive oil for each slice of bread

1. Ladle your soup into oven safe receptacles, being mindful to leave one finger-width for your cheesy or cheese-free toasts.

2. Float the toast in the center of each bowl and cover with cheese. If you wanna do it vegan; douse toast with the olive oil.

3. Pop the bowls under the broiler either in your oven or your toaster oven, and broil until the cheese is bubbly and brown, or the olive oil slicked bread turns golden. Garnish with pinches of salt, and brewers yeast if appropriate.

4. Don’t burn your tongue.

Beverage: De Proef's Flemish Primative Ale
Soundtrack: Metal Urbain’s Hysterie Connective