Author Archives: Alison Ashton

Spinach-Gruyere Souffle

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Nothing showcases the culinary power of eggs quite like a souffle. The yolks bind and enrich the base while the beaten whites leaven the souffle for its characteristic light, airy texture. This is a classic spring version, but you could add mushrooms, substitute different vegetables for the spinach, or swap the Gruyere cheese for a different variety. (Save the extra egg yolk to make Pasta with Asparagus and Prosciutto.) The souffle begins to deflate as soon as it comes out of the oven, so serve it immediately with a “Bon Appetit!” in your best Julia Child imitation. Pair it with a green salad dressed in Mustard-Shallot Vinaigrette and dry white wine for a light supper.

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Dying Onion Easter Eggs – The Beauty of Imperfection

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If you’re of a certain age and grew up with garish Hanna-Barbera cartoons, you harbor some nostalgia for Easter eggs dyed in lavishly fake hues not found in nature. Bubblegum pink, say, or Tang orange. But aesthetics have changed since then, especially among those of us who have embraced sustainable living. We crave something more in tune with the earth using natural dyes and decorations, which is what Lia charged me to bring to you in this post.

onion-dyed-easter-eggsThankfully, there are plenty of resources for how to make dyes by boiling colorful ingredients (think beets, blueberries, and the like) to extract their pigments, which you then use to dye hard-cooked eggs (the egg-dying equivalent of using henna to color your hair). What’s Cooking America has clear instructions to make fruits, vegetables, and spices into dyes. Culinary Musings has groovy ideas for using rubber bands and tape to create batik-like patterns.

I admire people who have the patience and steady hands to turn everyday objects into works of art . . . but the truth is, I’m just not one of them. I tried to shift this assignment to one of my colleagues–Jackie, maybe, since her beautiful gyoza are edible works of art. But, no, Lia thought my Everywoman lack of handicraft skills made me an ideal candidate. If we found a project that I could master, anyone could succeed.

So off I went in search of the simple.

Luckily, Lia mentioned something about using onion skins to dye eggs. This requires nothing more than eggs, papery onion skins, cheesecloth, and kitchen twine. I loved the idea of using humble items that I had on hand to create subtly beautiful patterns reminiscent of marbled endpapers from old books. Even better, I could cook the raw eggs and dye them in one step.

The real beauty of this project is that it’s all about imperfection. The onion skins don’t have to be uniform sizes, and they needn’t be wrapped perfectly around the eggs. In fact, the more they overlap, and the less perfect they are, the more interesting the results.

Use white-shell eggs, so the subtle colors from the onion skins show up nicely. A combination of the papery skins from red and yellow onions will give the eggs a marbled yellow-and-brown pattern. Here’s what you need:

  • Selection of papery skins from red and yellow onions
  • White-shell eggs, at room temperature to prevent them from cracking when added to boiling water
  • Cheesecloth, cut into 6-inch squares (2 yards is plenty for 6-8 eggs)
  • Kitchen twine
  • Vegetable oil

Place skins in a bowl of warm water to soften them. Dip an egg in warm water. Drape pieces of skin around the egg (similar to doing papier mache). Wrap the egg in a double layer of cheesecloth; secure with kitchen twine. Repeat with as many eggs, onion skins, cloth, and twine as you like.

Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Gently lower eggs into pan. Cook 11 minutes. Transfer eggs to an ice bath. Unwrap eggs and gently wipe them dry with a clean towel. Dip a towel in oil and rub each egg to give it a pretty sheen.

What to do with those leftover onions? Sub them for the peppers in our Sweet Pepper Confit or Quick-Pickled Red Onions (which will work with any kind of onions) to serve with your Easter meal, or on a sandwich with leftovers.

A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and NOURISH Evolution’s editorial director. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health.


The Cook’s Thesaurus: Lori Alden

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Those of us who work with food rely on a variety of reference tools. There’s a plethora of wonderful books to learn about culinary history, how to use ingredients, and smart substitutions. I love Food Lover’s Companion, for example, and Kurt recently sang the praises of Waverly Root’s classic Food: An Authoritative Visual History and Dictionary of the Foods of the World. Both deserve a place on your cookbook shelf.

Truth is, though, if you want to learn more about how to use an ingredient or find a substitution, you’ll probably start with the Internet. My first stop is The Cook’s Thesaurus, a site I learned about a few years ago from a colleague. It has a homey, unfussy design, a vast range of reliable food information, and great navigation. I’ve consulted it on my iPhone while at the farmers’ market and when I needed to make substitutions on the fly in a busy pastry kitchen. It’s rare that I don’t find what I seek in The Cook’s Thesaurus, and every time, I’m impressed anew by the site’s breadth and depth.

food-subs-postIt’s also a remarkable labor of love. Founder Lori Alden created the site 1995, back in the early days of the Internet, as way to practice her HTML skills. An economist who spent 20 years teaching in the California State University system, Alden is also an adventuresome cook. She worked in kitchens as a student and did a short stint as a short-order cook, but it was during her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa that she became a pro at substituting one food for another. “We had to improvise all the time with limited ingredients,” she says.

Improvising is exactly what she designed The Cook’s Thesaurus to give novice cooks the confidence to do. The site was inspired by a friend who complained of searching high and low for hazelnuts, not realizing that they’re often labeled “filberts” and could be swapped for almonds, walnuts, macadamias, pecans or Brazil nuts. Alden approached the project with academic rigor, and the result is an online reference that covers everything from the Indian spice aamchur to the crisp bread zwieback–with all of their alternative names and potential substitutions. To round it out, Alden gathered ingredients, set up a home studio and snapped pictures of just about everything.

But you don’t have to be novice to benefit from Alden’s efforts. For example, I can never remember which types of potatoes are starchy and which are waxy. So, of course, I visited the site before developing this potato-leek soup and was reminded that a lovely medium-starch potato like the Yukon gold would work beautifully.

Thanks again, Lori.

Colcannon Soup with Oven-Roasted Kale

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This soup is inspired by colcannon, a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes and cabbage or kale. Buttery Yukon golds are medium-starch potatoes, which makes them particularly versatile. You could use russets or fingerlings instead. Leeks, too, have a wonderfully complex flavor and are a traditional component in colcannon. If you can’t find them, sub two yellow onions in the recipe. Yellow onions have more intricate flavor than white onions (and they tend to be cheaper). Roasting the kale enhances its flavor and yields a crunchy texture that makes it a pretty garnish for the soup. Use any variety of kale you find, from curly to dinosaur (also known as lacinato).

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Homemade Mayonnaise

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Homemade mayonnaise is rich, creamy, and tangy in a way stuff from the jar can’t duplicate. Whipping up your own mayo also is a use of leftover egg yolks from making meringues and other egg-white-based recipes (like our Chocolate Angel Food Cake); the fresher the eggs, the silkier, tastier and more golden your mayonnaise will be. I enjoy the satisfaction of whipping the egg yolks by hand, but you could use a blender, food processor or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (a good idea if you decide to double or triple this recipe). The amount of oil you’ll use depends on the size of the yolks and how thick you like your mayonnaise; for a stiff sauce, use more oil. This homemade mayonnaise is great spread on a sandwich, as well as in other recipes, like Bestest Buttermilk-Chive Dressing. I also love this homemade mayonnaise recipe as a dipper for roasted baby potatoes or sauteed shrimp. To make aioli, substitute extra-virgin olive oil for canola, and add a clove or two of garlic that’s been mashed to a paste.

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Heavenly Desserts: Indulgences That are Light by Nature

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By Alison Ashton

Lately, I’ve preached the benefits of indulgences. I believe that if you eat what you really want, you’re less likely to overdo it in the long run. For me, that means saving room for dessert. Most of the time, however, all I really want is a little something to end a meal on a sweet grace note–a treat to enjoy, not make me groan, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

heavenly-dessertsThat point came home for me during the recent holiday season, when I offered to bring dessert for dinner at our friends’ house. I spent all day making a rich chocolate torte. With chocolate ganache. And pumpkinseed brittle. And cranberry coulis to brighten up the plate. It was delicious, but after our wonderful supper of heritage turkey and all the fixings, it was the last thing I wanted.

Instead, I craved something simple and light–a refreshing citrus sorbet, perhaps, or a selection of cookies to nibble with after-dinner coffee.

The best light desserts are those that aren’t too heavy to begin with; many of which are simple affairs. I’m a big fan of icy, refreshing sorbets or granitas, especially when they spotlight seasonal fruit. Fruit compote served over low-fat Greek yogurt is creamy and satisfying, and simple savory-sweet concoctions like Chocolate Crostini with Orange Zest and Sea Salt deliver big flavor in petite packages.

All Whipped Up

The main tool in the light baking arsenal is meringue, which is nothing more than egg whites beaten with sugar. There are three types of meringues, which you can use in any number of ways:

  • French: egg whites and sugar beaten as stiff as you like (anywhere from soft to stiff peaks). Because the eggs are raw, a French meringue must be cooked. If you beat a French meringue to stiff peaks, you can bake it into crunchy little cookies or into larger circles to use as a base for fruit-topped Pavlovas.
  • Italian: egg whites beaten with hot sugar syrup to a creamy consistency. The hot syrup raises the temperature of the egg whites to a level that’s safe to consume without further cooking. An Italian meringue is stable enough to use as a naturally low-fat cake frosting.
  • Swiss: egg whites and sugar are heated in a double-boiler. This also brings the egg whites up to a safe temperature so the meringue requires no further cooking. Like an Italian meringue, this is a stable mixture that can be used to frost cakes, decorate tarts, and pies.

Angel food cake is a classic foam cake that is leavened by a French meringue for a heavenly light texture (most likely the source of its celestial name). Some food historians credit the Pennsylvania Dutch with the angel food cake’s creation, as a way to use leftover egg whites. Others believe it was perfected by African-American slaves, since beating the egg whites would have been a laborious chore before the invention of the electric mixer. Both stories sound plausible to me, but either way this old-time dessert is perfect for modern meals.

alison-thumbA longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.

Chocolate Angel Food Cake with Macerated Strawberries

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Use room-temperature eggs, which will be easy to separate and beat to their full volume. (Hang onto the yolks to make Homemade Mayonnaise or Sweet Potato-Kale Bread Pudding.) Angel food cakes are made in an ungreased tube pan, which provides maximum surface area and traction for the cake to climb. The cake is cooled upside-down so it doesn’t lose volume as it cools. Some tube pans have little feet to hold the pan up off the counter while the cake cools. If yours doesn’t, simply invert the pan on the neck of a wine bottle or other bottle that fits into the hole of the tube pan.

choc-angel-foodcakeCake

1-1/2 cups sugar, divided
2/3 cup cake flour
1/3 cup unsweetened dark chocolate cocoa powder
12 egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Strawberries

1 pound strawberries, trimmed and sliced
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon Cointreau (orange-flavored liqueur)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Remaining ingredients

2 tablespoons slivered toasted almonds
Whipped cream (optional)
Fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.

To prepare cake, sift together 3/4 cup sugar, flour, and cocoa powder in a medium bowl.

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 3/4 cup sugar. Add salt, vanilla, and almond extract; beat until stiff peaks form. Sprinkle one-third of flour mixture over beaten egg whites; gently fold flour mixture into egg whites. Repeat with remaining flour mixture.

Scrape batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan. Gently swirl a knife through the batter to eliminate any air bubbles. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until cake springs back when touched. Invert pan (either on its “feet” or on the neck of a wine bottle) and cool completely. Run a knife around edges to loosen cake. Gently pull cake out of pan and slice with a serrated knife.

While cake cools, prepare strawberries. Combine strawberries, 2 tablespoons sugar, liqueur, and juice in a medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes. Serve with cake; sprinkle with almonds. Garnish with whipped cream and mint, if desired.

Serves 12

Blood Orange Granita

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A granita is a light, simple, refreshing iced treat that doesn’t require an ice cream maker. Stirring the mixture periodically as it freezes gives the granita its characteristic fluffy, granular texture. Blood oranges are in season right now; they have a wonderful ruby flesh and pleasant sweet-tart juice. You can substitute regular fresh orange juice or tangerine juice. This three-ingredient dessert has an added benefit: One serving provides more than 100 percent of your vitamin C needs for the day.

blood-orange-granita-recipe2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups fresh blood orange juice (about 12 blood oranges)

Combine water and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Stir in juice. Pour mixture into an 8-inch square dish. Freeze 4 hours or until frozen, stirring with a fork every 30 minutes. Scrape surface of granita with a fork before serving.

Serves 8

By Alison Ashton

Finding Childhood Memories in Chopped Liver

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Proust had his madeleines. I have chopped liver.

Few foods trigger such strong childhood memories as the chopped liver my grandmother made when I was growing up. The recipe had long been in the family, ferried over by her mother on steerage passage from Kiev. Our family lacks any sentimentality, much less culinary history, so the exact recipe has been lost to the ages. It’s easy enough to re-create, though, since it was a basic concoction mixed by Jewish mamas for generations: Sauté chicken livers and onions in schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), run it through a meat grinder, and season with salt and pepper. Grandma often folded in chopped hard-cooked eggs. Then she packed it into a rinsed-out margarine tub and delivered it to us with a loaf of rye bread.

childhood-memories-chopped-liver-post

I took to chopped liver right away, loving its rich, gamy quality (though as a preschooler, I misheard the name and called the stuff “chopped litter,” a moniker Grandma happily adopted). I can almost certainly say I was the only kid at Loma Portal Elementary who hoarded sandwiches of chopped liver on rye, withholding them from lunchroom black market swaps (not that my classmates were clamoring for them). To this day, I love any kind of pate, from humble chopped liver to fancy pate de foie gras.

Chopped liver–affectionately called Jewish pate–is a type of forcemeat, which is a broad category that covers any finely ground mixture of meat, poultry, or even fish with spices and other ingredients. Forcemeats are used either to stuff other items, such as sausage casing or ravioli, or served on their own. They’re part of a time-honored tradition of using off-cuts (offal), including organ meats like liver. Although forcemeats can use expensive ingredients like foie gras, they typically employ cheap items like chicken livers, which you can pick up for less than $2.50 a pound at the supermarket.

Forcemeats usually are made with copious amounts of fat, which makes them rich and luscious, as well as caloric, and insanely high in saturated fat. Modern home cooks have made some changes when it comes to chopped liver–swapping schmaltz for canola oil, for example. I’ve made some other modifications to Grandma’s chopped liver, like using a food processor instead of a meat grinder, which gives it a finer quality, and employing a mix of liver and chicken thigh meat to trim the saturated fat. I’ve also added a touch of brandy and toasted walnuts to lend it some French flair. But the result is still redolent with the flavor I first grew to love and offers liver’s impressive nutritional benefits (lots of vitamin A, plenty of iron).

A modern version for a grown-up girl . . . but I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

alison-thumb-frameA longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health.


Chicken Pate with Brandy (Chopped Liver)

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This recipe is based on chopped liver — a k a “Jewish pate” — but combines liver with skinless, boneless chicken thighs and substitutes heart-healthy canola oil for traditional chicken fat in a version that’s much lower in saturated fat than my grandma’s specialty. I’ve also added a touch of brandy and toasted walnuts to take this a little upmarket. Spending a few minutes thoroughly cleaning and trimming the chicken of excess fat and sinew ensures a smooth pate; sharp kitchen shears make quick work of this task. Serve as an appetizer with crackers, toasted rye or French bread, along with cornichons, a robust mustard and dry white wine.

chicken-pate-chopped-liver-recipe2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 pound chicken livers, cleaned and trimmed
1/2 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons chopped toasted walnuts

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 2 minutes or until tender. Sprinkle livers and chicken with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add livers to pan and cook 2 minutes on each side or until seared on the outside and light pink on the inside (do not overcook). Transfer livers and onions to work bowl of a food processor.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in pan. Add thighs to pan and cook 2 minutes on each side or until done. Add thighs to food processor with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper, and brandy.

Process until smooth and stir in walnuts. Spoon pate into a shallow 2-cup dish or individual ramekins. Chill at least 1 hour before serving.

Serves 6