Stocking up

As the weather begins to turn, so do my thoughts–to making stocks as bases for all the soups, braises, and sauces that will warm the kitchen as we descend into winter. I’ve started squirreling away containers of them, as many as the freezer can hold, and I look forward to those rainy days when another fragrant pot of stock simmers to life on the back burner.

This stock-making penchant comes from my Dad, who used to become uncharacteristically quiet when, on weekends, he gathered the kitchen scraps that would transform into demi-glaces or game sauces. As soon as a string of crisp days came along, he lugged down his tallest stockpot, which took its place on the rear right quadrant of the stove, beside the small wooden barrel where he poured leftover wine to make his own vinegar. The first day, the pot sat tranquilly as delicate currents circulated around the jumble of bones, vegetables, and bundled herbs inside. Once the liquid went to gold and had drunk all the essence from the solids, he strained the whole mess through a fine, cone-shaped strainer into a smaller pot, where the clear stock concentrated further, overnight and into the next day, darkening from wheat-colored to ochre, and finally to a rich umber emulsion through which bubbles rose thickly. You could chart the progress of the stock’s reduction by the strata of skin around the inside of the pot, ruffling in the rising steam.  

Somewhere during those years, ‘tween self-consciousness kicked in and I bristled at all the elaborate goings-on in our kitchen. I worried ours would be that weird house with the heavy, soupy smell that made visitors want to leave as soon as they walked in the door. And there were other things, far more unsettling things, like the moldy hams curing in his hand-built wine cellar, the shotgun safe, and the sacks of limp birds he toted home from hunting expeditions. All of this felt way too conspicuous in our 80’s Lipton suburbia. Later, Dad took up fly-fishing and practiced his roll cast in the front yard, in full view of the neighbors, and decked in full regalia, to boot: hat, hiking socks pulled up his shins, and a vest adorned with net and scissors and lures (mercifully, he stopped shy of the waders). It was simply too much for a sullen teenage vegetarian to take. I retreated upstairs to the safety of the TV room, where I could see the fishing line whipping back and forth in front of the window as I tried to concentrate on Real World marathons.

Eventually I regained my senses, and I couldn’t deny for long that cooking (and omnivorism) was in my bones. My prescient mother bought me a giant stockpot as a gift for my first apartment in NYC, a tiny studio on the Upper West Side. The kitchen itself wasn’t much bigger than the vessel, which ended up getting used as storage for cookie cutters and pie weights and other things that saw the light of day once a year. I still have that pot, bought at a kitchen outlet somewhere, and from which many stocks have sprung. It’s a good one, even though the glass lid is cracked and it’s a bitch to clean. I also use it to steam lobsters and seal jam jars and, as always, store pie weights.

Making stocks is more than just my chance to wallow in nostalgia–it’s the essence of kitchen thrift, since many scraps discarded as garbage are, in fact, the makings of some of the finest soup bases. Leek tops, wobbly carrots, mushrooms gone slightly soft–and of course bones–are all fair game. If you are an enthusiastic cook but have not yet crafted your own stock, make this your year! What I've learned is that precision is overrated; in cooking school we were handed recipes and expected to follow them to the letter, told to hover scrupulously over the stock pot, ready to skim should any globule of fat or foam rise. Years of casual stock-making at home have taught me that this is unnecessary, unless you strive to create the clearest of consommés. The classic French method dictates that you fashion a neat little bouquet garni–a bundle of herbs–and neatly tie it together. I've found that 1. it's not the end of the world if you don't have every single herb dictated, and 2. it's a waste of time to tie everything neatly together when, after all, you're straining the whole thing at the end, anyway. Amounts don't have to be precise, either–just don't add too much water, or the stock will be diluted.

Below, I’ve included some tips to make stock-making easier and more fulfilling. I’ve also included a recipe for chicken stock. If you can get your hands on them, chicken feet make some of the richest stock possible–I buy mine from Grazin’ Angus Acres at the Carroll St. market on Sundays. In another family tangent, my Mom loves telling the story of how she and her friend once sneaked a bag of raw chicken feet into someone’s fancy cocktail party, painted the toenails harlot red, and arranged them neatly on doilies, to be passed among the other canapés. Crazy Mom, these are for you.

Stock tips

• You may have all the makings of a vegetable stock in your fridge: anything a little past its prime yet not moldy works well. At a minimum, you'll want onions and carrots, but try to include celery, as well. You can also throw in garlic, mushrooms, and a little bit of tomato, among other things. Just avoid starchy root vegetables, as they will cloud the stock. 
• Be a vegetable completist: if you are making corn chowder, use the cobs to make a stock. For winter squash soups, use the skins, seeds, and pulp (along with other aromatics) for a flavorful base (strain this liquid before pureeing with roasted squash).
• When ordering chicken parts from the butcher, ask them to save the backs, necks and wing tips–stash them in the freezer until you reach critical mass and have a good day for stock-making.
• For the richest chicken stock, use not only backs but collagen-rich parts such as wings, necks, and feet
• After roasting a chicken and picking it over, simmer the carcass and leavings in a pot with some vegetables, herbs, and water. 
• If you make stock regularly, invest in a “chinois,” or fine-mesh conical strainer. Its deep basket holds a lot of gunk and fits nicely over pots.
• To save space, reduce stock way down to concentrate it. Freeze it in ice cube trays, transfer frozen cubes of stock to freezer bags, and use as needed; you can always add more water to dilute later on.
• I like this recipe for homemade vegetable bouillon, from 101 cookbooks
• Doctor the stock–The old man himself recently confessed to buying store-bought stock ("the ready-made kinds have gotten so good," he insisted). His tip: in a pinch, you can elevate it by simmering with aromatic herbs.

Chicken Stock   

Ingredients:

• 3-4 lbs. chicken bones with fat and excess skin removed; include a mix of backs, necks, and feet if possible
• 2 medium onions, chopped (skins on)
• 4 large carrots, roughly chopped (skins on)
• 1 large rib celery, chopped
• 1 dried bay leaf
• a few fresh sprigs thyme
• 6-8 whole peppercorns 
• a few parsley sprigs

Instructions:

Rinse chicken bones and put into a large, heavy-bottomed pot or saucepan–choose a pot that holds the bones snugly, allowing for headway and room for vegetables and water. Cover bones with cold water and bring just to a boil. Lower to the gentlest simmer and allow to continue like this, undisturbed and uncovered. Do not boil. Periodically skim off any foam that rises to the top. After about an hour, add vegetables and herbs. Simmer them together for another few hours (2-3), then take off the heat. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean container. If you like, reduce stock further by simmering vigorously in a clean pot. Refrigerate and, once chilled, skim off any fat that has solidified on top. It is normal and wonderful for chicken stock to congeal when cold. Freeze your stock in freezer-safe containers. You can also freeze it in ice trays and use the cubes as needed for sauces, soups, and risottos.

In between

There has been some confusion in our house, especially among the small people, about what season this is. There's been some denial, some wearing of sandals (with socks stuffed underneath), even on these 50 degree mornings we've been having. It's hard to part with summer, especially the kind of summer that's likely to stand out in childhood and adult memories. So, when does autumn truly arrive–and has it already? Do we officially cross over to the other side once the school doors open? When the blog returns from a long vacation? Or after the balance of daylight and dark shifts, and the calendar says September 23rd? Maybe it happens in the markets, when pumpkins and mums make their entrance, or in the kitchen, when the urge to bake returns and we break out the red wine again.

Maybe it's not so clear-cut at all, and it doesn't have to be. Though the carefree anarchy of summer vacation was hard to say goodbye to, this limbo time is sweet, before the first frost silences the crickets and banishes sundresses under beds for good. The market stalls are overflowing with both summer and fall produce now, so we don’t have to choose between corn and acorn squash just yet, and we can grill and braise to our hearts' content. And we can even pretend, on the weekends at least, that we’re still on vacation: our feet planted firmly in two worlds as we pick apples in t-shirts and sip rosé in front of the season’s first fire.

Better still, the oven is back in action and late-summer stone fruits are very much hanging around, even though the apples are closing in fast. The recipe below is one of my favorite ways to use all the plums–the beautiful dusty-blue prune variety–we've been getting through our CSA. The original version, from the fantastic David Lebovitz, is for a plum-blueberry upside-down cake, which was just the thing in July, but too late now for local blueberries. So I gave it a try with only plums and loved the elegant simplicity that resulted; we were sneaking slivers for breakfast and enjoying wedges for dessert with plum ice cream from the irresistible Belgique Patisserie, in Kent.

Baking this cake warms the house on a chilly morning and fills it with the scents of browning butter and caramelized fruit. The best part about this easy-to-make dessert, which looks like a flat round of nothing through the oven window, is getting to flip it over and reveal the rosy whorl of baked plums beneath. You hold your breath just a little…like mother nature holding hers right before she puts on her flamboyant fall show.

Plum Upside-Down Cake  

Adapted from David Lebovitz, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes

Ingredients:  

Topping:  

• 3 tablespoons (1 ½ oz.) unsalted butter 
• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar  
• 7-9 plums, halved, pitted, and sliced into ½ inch wedges  (alternatively, combine 6-8 plums with 1 ¼ cups blueberries or other berries)

 Cake:  

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder  
• ¼ teaspoon salt  
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature  
• ¾ cup sugar  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature  
• ½ cup whole milk, at room temperature

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. 
2. To make the topping, put the 3 tablespoons butter in a 9-inch round cake pan or cast iron skillet. Set pan on stove and melt butter over low heat, then stir in brown sugar until it is thoroughly moistened. Spread the sugar mixture evenly over bottom of pan, and let cool for a few minutes.  
3. Starting in the center and nestling slices close to one another, arrange plums in a pretty pattern of concentric circles, until you reach the outside and cannot see any of the pan's bottom.  
4. To make the cake, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, beating until completely incorporated. Mix in half the flour mixture, then add the milk, followed by the rest of the flour, and mix until just combined.  
5. Scrape the batter on top of the plums in the pan, and spread it evenly over them. Put pan in the oven and bake until the cake is golden brown and passes the toothpick test–about 50 minutes to an hour. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes. Run a knife around the side of the pan, then cover pan with a large plate. Using oven mitts and keeping plate and pan firmly together, carefully flip the whole thing over. Lift pan off of plate in one smooth, confident motion.

Serving: Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream. If serving later, re-warm cake in foil, in a low oven.  
Storage: Store at room temperature for up to 2 days, using the baking pan as a lid over the cake.

Black Currants

If you grew up in the United States, chances are good that black currants weren’t on your summer table. Probably, unless you traveled abroad or had a British granny smuggling them in, they weren’t on your radar at all. That’s because even now, the tart, musky little berries are still illegal to grow in some states, with other states only recently having lifted the ban (New York did so in 2003). Though popular in Europe and brought over to America by colonists as early as the seventeenth century, black currants were found to harbor white pine blister rust, and in the 1920s cultivation was banned nationwide. In the mean time, they were all but forgotten in this country. I don’t think I heard of them until traveling to France as a child, when we strolled through the farmers' markets and witnessed such marvels as jewel-like groseilles and live guinea pigs.

For my husband Ben, who landed here from England as a boy, black currants top the list of his all-time favorite fruits. That's not because they are succulent or delicious to eat out of hand (they’re not) but because of his beloved Granny, who grew them and simmered them into a compote for dessert, served with fresh double cream. He still goes all misty-eyed when he speaks of the willowy Granny Mildé, with her lush garden and simple yet impeccable cooking; her army of pugs and her passion for swimming icy waters, owing to a childhood spent splashing in the salmon-rich rivers of Northumberland (seriously. I think she once dove into the Long Island Sound in December). The first time I heard about her, I knew I had a lot to live up to.

It was Ben who introduced me to the powerful flavor of black currants, though at the time we had no access to the fresh fruit or any inkling that it existed in the U.S. at all. When we were first together, our refrigerator was never without a bottle of Ribena (blackcurrant syrup), usually brought back from England by a relative or scored for a pretty penny at Myer’s of Keswick. After work, he would come home and stir a spoonful of it into a glass of cold water, for a tangy purple drink. I learned quickly that if anyone in his family showed up with a pack of Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles, there would be a fight to the death over the black ones. In those early days someone–probably Ben's sister, Chloe–took pity on me and gave me one of the blacks so I wouldn't have to duke it out with the rest of them.

I soon developed a fondness for the musky perfume–which reminded me in a weird way of elderflower. I fell for them without ever having sampled the real thing, and then one summer, black currants turned up practically in our back yard. We were over at Mrs. L’s farm, near our house in Connecticut, picking blueberries. In case you didn’t read this post from last July, picking blueberries at Mrs. L.’s honor-system blueberry patch is one of my most favorite things on earth. Nine times out of ten she doesn't appear at all, but one day she did, and she was in a chatty mood. I don't remember how the subject came up, but she casually mentioned her black currant bushes. Ben perked up, not quite believing his ears.

“People don't really like them in this country.” She said, waving a hand dismissively. “They don’t understand them. You're welcome to pick some.”

So we set about picking, which is no easy task, and whenever we see her now we delicately wangle an invitation to take some of the fruit off her hands. They also show up some weekends in season–along with the blueberries–at the excellent Marble Valley Farm (Route 7 just south of Kent, CT).

In New York City, Wilklow Orchards sells black currants (along with red currants and gooseberries), as does Red Jacket Orchards. Both farms have stands at NYC greenmarkets, including Borough Hall and Union Square. Wilklow had some fine looking black currants yesterday, but I was told they won't be around for much longer.
 

How to best eat these dusky little fruits? Cooked! You really do not want to eat them raw, as they are intensely tannic with a strong, almost resinous flavor. My friend Kamila tells me that when she was a child in the Czech Republic, her family grew them in their yard, where she and her sister would hold contests to see who could endure eating the most raw black currants. They also enjoyed them cooked in desserts and in jams, and would use the tines of a fork to “comb” the berries off the stems, which can be an arduous task.

Every summer, I have experimented with and enjoyed black currants in various ways. I have made a concentrated syrup to mix with water (still or sparkling), kind of like Ribena. You make the syrup by stewing the black currants with sugar and a bit of water, then mashing and straining them. Mrs. L. tells us she likes to serve black currant syrup over slices of lemon cake.

I have also made an alcoholic version, using vodka, to fashion a sort of homemade Crème de Cassis, for kirs and kir royals (mix a small amount with crisp white wine or champagne, respectively). 

The venerable Elizabeth David recommended adding black currants to summer pudding, that English dessert fashioned from berries and white bread and served with cream. My mother-in-law, Pauline, makes a delicious summer pudding; she included it in a beautiful handwritten recipe book she gave to all the ladies in the family for Christmas one year. Some day I'll give this recipe a whirl with black currants instead of blackberries.

I have found the most simple, versatile, and delicious use of black currants is to make a puree, which can then be enjoyed over ice cream or folded into sweetened cream as a fool. I have also spun this puree into an ice cream base for a rich, violet-hued cassis ice cream, which my friend Michele also tells me her Swiss father makes every summer. 

Currants both black and red also make delicious jam, as well as lending themselves to savory recipes, such as sauces for meat and game. As for Granny Mildé, the compote she served contained all the seeds and skins, at least the way Ben remembers it–and he loved it that way. Little did he know, he was also getting incredible doses of vitamins and other nutrients as blackcurrants, already loaded with Vitamin C, potassium, and antioxidants, have high concentrations of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids in their seeds. In fact, black currant extracts are touted as medicinal, and black currant syrup was distributed to children in Britain during World War II, when citrus fruits were scarce. If you don't mind a bit of extra roughage, you can follow the recipe below without straining it.

Black Currant Puree
Adapted from Elizabeth David, Summer Cooking


Ingredients: 

• 1 pound black currants, rinsed (stems are O.K. if you plan on straining)
• 3/4 pounds natural sugar, plus more if needed
• fresh lemon juice

Instructions: Put black currants and sugar into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat over medium flame until they begin to bubble. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring and mashing occasionally with a spoon. Once berries have broken down, pass them through a mesh strainer into a clean bowl, pressing to extract all the liquid. Use a spatula to scrape the outside of the strainer, as the fruit contains a lot of pectin and will begin to thicken. Discard solids. Rinse pan and return the strained puree to the heat, stirring in a squeeze of lemon. Taste and add a little more sugar if you'd like it sweeter, and serve hot or cold (puree thickens when chilled).