« Brunch bonanza | Home | Hazards of Cooking the Books »
Trading Tastes: Sunset Adventures in Food
By Ann | April 1, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Trading Tastes, in which guest bloggers offer thoughts on their favorite cookbooks. Today we are excited to welcome artist (check out his spectacular work here), scientist, oenophile, and excellent cook, my father, Robert Mah — regular Cooking the Books readers may know him as “Bob” from the comments section. He suggests:
Adventures in Food: An unusual cook book with distinctive recipes from near and far
Sunset Books, 1964
The dust jacket has long been lost and the book is battered, stuffed with recipe clippings, and stained with drippings from its many encounters with a beginning cook. I still remember my first success, produced and reproduced over and over again in subsequent dinner parties… a recipe for spinach and cheese quiche. Though I haven’t prepared this recipe for many years, I can still turn unerringly to page 78 and know with satisfaction that this simple recipe really works. Over the years, modifications to adjust the recipe for a health-conscious version failed to replicate the texture and flavors of this recipe so it eventually slid into the background except for gatherings where it could blend in amongst even richer entrees. This 192-page book is full of simple recipes for such basic things as aioli, a ten-second hollandaise, pesto, etc., but also has unusual recipes… tongue mousse, curried chicken gizzards, Sulz (that’s pig’s feet), malfatti (Italian for “badly made” … turns out to be a delicious ravioli-like pasta), and even Lahm Ajoun (Armenian pizza). Most recipes call for butter, cream, cheese, egg yolks, and other ingredients which I now use with discretion, but, in its day, this book was the source of many pleasureable eating and dining experiences.
Cheese and Spinach Quiche
Line a 9-inch pan with pastry (see below for my quickie recipe). Place another pan of the same size inside it and bake in a moderately hot oven (375) for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, take off top pan, and cool.
4 shallots, minced
3 Tblsp butter, divided into two and one tblspns
1 cup spinach, cooked (or frozen), very well drained
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1-1/2 cups light cream
1/2 tsp salt
Dash freshly grated nutmeg
1-2 grindings of pepper
1/2 cup Gruyere cheese, shredded
Cook minced shallots in two tblspns butter until wilted. Combine with the spinach, eggs, cream, salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Pour into the pastry shell, sprinkle with 1/2 cup shredded gruyere (more, if you like cheese), dot with tiny pieces of the remaining butter. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until filling is set and top is brown. Makes six servings.
Bob’s Jiffy pie crust
3 oz cream cheese
1 cube butter, hardened
1-1/3 to 1-1/4 cup flour
Cut butter into smaller pieces. Add flour and all ingredients to bowl of food processor. Turn steel blade on and blend until a ball of dough forms. Turn off processor and roll out to appropriate pie-plate size.
Topics: Trading Tastes |