Oh Thank God

Smitten Kitchen has gotten around to blueberry muffins.  I LOVE blueberry muffins.  Of course, I'll probably ruin all of her hard work by trying to "healthify" the damn things, but such is life.  And her recipe is a take on  Cook's Illustrated's anyway, so I feel justified.

Perfect Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated
Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins
5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter.

Blueberry Pie

No time like the present.

Blueberry Filling
6	cups fresh blueberries (about 30 ounces) (see note)
1	Granny Smith apple , peeled and grated on large holes of box grater
2	teaspoons grated zest and 2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
3/4	cup sugar (5 1/4 ounces)
2	tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca , ground (see note)
	Pinch table salt
2	tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1	large egg , lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

For The Filling: Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place rimmed baking sheet on oven rack, and heat oven to 400 degrees. Place 3 cups berries in medium saucepan and set over medium heat. Using potato masher, mash berries several times to release juices. Continue to cook, stirring frequently and mashing occasionally, until about half of berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 8 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Place grated apple in clean kitchen towel and wring dry. Transfer apple to large bowl. Add cooked berries, remaining 3 cups uncooked berries, lemon zest, juice, sugar, tapioca, and salt; toss to combine. Transfer mixture to dough-lined pie plate and scatter butter pieces over filling.

Roll out second disk of dough on generously floured (up to 1/4 cup) work surface to 11-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick. Using 1 1/4-inch round biscuit cutter, cut round from center of dough. Cut another 6 rounds from dough, 1 1/2 inches from edge of center hole and equally spaced around center hole. Roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll over pie, leaving at least 1/2-inch overhang on each side.

Using kitchen shears, trim bottom layer of overhanging dough, leaving 1/2-inch overhang. Fold dough under itself so that edge of fold is flush with outer rim of pie plate. Flute edges using thumb and forefinger or press with tines of fork to seal. Brush top and edges of pie with egg mixture. If dough is very soft, chill in freezer for 10 minutes.

Place pie on heated baking sheet and bake 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to bake until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes longer. Transfer pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours. Cut into wedges and serve.

Pretty But Pasty Too much tapioca (or the wrong thickener, such as flour or cornstarch) results in a filling that holds its shape but tastes gluey and dull.	Fresh But Soupy With no thickener at all, there is plenty of fresh berry flavor, but the filling is loose and runny.

We used a 1 1/4-inch biscuit cutter to cut holes in the dough, but a spice-jar lid will also do the trick.

ON THE LOOSE Pie filling thickened without enough tapioca won't firm up. But too much tapioca leads to gumminess.	ALL FIRMED UP A little tapioca plus a grated apple created a juicy but sliceable filling.

Pie Crust

Oh fine - if you must. (I'll just say it one more time though. . . . )
I tend to trust that these clowns have done all the science and calorie crunching for me. Give it a whirl and then make me a pie please.

Foolproof Pie Dough
Vodka is essential to the texture of the crust and imparts no flavor—do not substitute. This dough will be moister and more supple than most standard pie doughs and will require more flour to roll out (up to 1/4 cup).

For one 9-inch Double-Crust Pie
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces)
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening , cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup vodka , cold
1/4 cup cold water

1. Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until homogenous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.

2. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.



Step-by-Step: Key Steps to Foolproof Pie Dough


1. MAKE A FAT AND FLOUR PASTE: Completely blending part of the flour with all of the butter ensures a consistent amount of fat-coated flour in the final dough.
2. ADD MORE FLOUR: Pulsing in the final cup of flour ensures a consistent amount of uncoated flour in the final dough.


3. ADD WATER AND VODKA: Sprinkling with water and vodka ensures even distribution. No need to skimp—unlike water, vodka won't make the dough tough.

Hot & Sour Soup

While we're on the topic of soup, I remembered that I really want to try making Hot & Sour soup at home. I LOVE this stuff, but restaurants can be so hit or miss. Some are awesome, some kind of bleh. Cook's Illustrated was taunting me with their recipe but they can FORGET IT if they think they can get me to subscribe to them again just for this. The interwebs and I will defeat you ATK!!


Hot & Sour Soup
5 dried wood ear mushrooms
4 dried shiitake mushrooms
8 dried tiger lily buds
4 cups chicken stock
1/3 cup diced bamboo shoots
1/3 cup lean ground pork
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons water
1/2 (16 ounce) package firm tofu, cubed
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion

Soak the dried mushrooms and tiger lily buds in warm water for 20 minutes. After trimming off any tough stems, slice the mushrooms. With the fingers, shred the tiger lily stems.
Place the mushrooms, tiger lily buds, stock, bamboo shoots, and shredded pork into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Stir in soy sauce, sugar, salt, white pepper, and vinegar. Combine cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water. Add a little of the hot soup to the cornstarch, and then return all to the pan. Heat to boiling, stirring. Add the bean curd, and cook 1 to 2 minutes.
Just before serving, turn off the heat. Stir the egg in gradually. Mix in sesame oil. Sprinkle each serving with scallions.

Several folks mention subbing out shiitakes and other mushrooms for the wood ears and tiger lilly buds, but I have confidence that I'll be able to find them out on Clement. There was also a lot of talk about adding more vinegar, using rice wine vinegar and no sugar, and upping the soy, plus dashes of Sriracha here and there. I'm sure I'll do plenty of doctoring to taste and post my notes here. Word on the street is that the egg makes it cloudy - one clever person waited until it was off the heat for a couple of minutes and then added the beaten egg and she says it makes the difference.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. It seems I get all my recipe from three places, All Recipes, Food Network (and their website), and Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen.
This is no exception. For Thanksgiving, I was in charge of an appetizer. I've done stuffed mushrooms before, and the version printed in Number 95 looked delish. Fine it's been a long time since I've done stuffed mushrooms, but come on, they're mushrooms, with stuffing. I learned some tough lessons though by not following directions exactly. Learn with me people. . . .

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms with Spinach and Goat Cheese
(the filling can be made in advance and kept in the fridge; just reheat it before stuffing the mushrooms)

10 small portobello mushrooms - Remove stems and chop. Also chop up two of the 10 mushrooms, so you're left with 8 to stuff and about 3 c of chopped mushrooms.
4 tbsp olive oil
salt
2 6 oz bags of baby spinach
bread for bread crumbs - I used some stale sourdough baguette I had around; use whatever you have (although the recipe calls for two slices of white sandwich bread, torn into quarters if you must know; you just want to end up with 1 1/2 c)
1-2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium onions, finely diced (approx 2 cups)
4 medium sized cloves of garlic (squish through a garlic press)
1/2 c dry sherry (I used Dry Sack)
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
4-5 oz goat cheese, crumbled
1/4 c ff half and half (recipe calls for heavy cream)
1 c walnuts, toasted (I used the Diamond walnuts that came already chopped to save myself some work)
2 tsp lemon juice
ground black pepper

And now for the million steps. . . * cracks knuckles before proceeding *
Place spinach and 2 tbsp of water in a microwave safe bowl with a cover and nuke for 3 minutes (I had to do this in two batches, and just divided the water). Spinach should be wilted and half of what it was before. Keep covered for a minute before moving spinach to a colander. Once I had nuked both batches, I let the spinach sit in the colander to drain and cool off while I did the rest. If you're impatient, use the back of a spoon or spatula to smoosh excess liquid out of the spinach. If you're patient and the spinach cools off, you can squeeze it by hand. You really want to get as much liquid out as possible. Roughly chop, smoosh or squeeze again, and set aside.
Pulse bread in food processor until coarsely ground.
Heat 1 tbsp oil (and 1 tbsp of butter if you'd like; I just used some butter flavored Pam to impart a buttery flavor to my oil) over medium high until warm. Add bread crumbs, 1/4 tsp salt and cook, stirring frequently until lightly browned, 5-8 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and wipe out skillet with a paper towel.
Add remaining tbsp oil back to pan and head over medium high until smoking. Add mushrooms to pan and let sit without stirring for 2 minutes. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally until lightly browned, 4-6 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.
Add 1 tbsp butter and onions to skillet (I probably could've gotten away with more Pam here, but decided to go for the real deal) along with the onions. Cook 5-6 minutes until onions are light brown. Add garlic and cook til fragrant, only 30 seconds or so. Stir in sherry and cook til almost no liquid remains, just a couple of minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in the mushrooms, spinach, thyme, goat cheese, half and half (or cream), and walnuts. Cook until cheese is melted and veggies are well coated. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

As for the mushrooms, preheat oven to 400; preheat baking sheet on center rake as well. Using a sharp knife, cut a crosshatch of shallow slits (about 1/4 inch deep) onto the top of the mushroom (not the gill side) about 1/2 inch apart.
Brush both sides of caps with remaining 2 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place mushrooms, gill side up onto preheated baking sheet. Roast until mushies have released some of their juices and have begun to brown around the edges, 10 minutes or so. Flip over and roast for another 10 minutes until juices have evaporated and caps are golden brown. Mine remained soggy and messy the entire time which was unfortunate. Remove mushies and preheat the broiler.

If you made the filling in advance, now is the time to reheat it. It doesn't have to be piping hot, but it should certainly be warm. Fill caps, top with bread crumbs and broil for a few minutes. Do NOT walk away from the oven at this point! Just hang out and watch to make sure you don't burn the tops. Serve immediately.

Again, be sure to get the small ones if you're doing this as an appetizer; if you get the big ones you'll end up with a big delicious flaccid mess. Look for the ones that are 4 inches across or so. If you use the large ones, these will still work as a knife and fork vegetarian meal, but not so much as an app. They're awesome so I highly recommend you make them.