Egg Crepes with Caramelized Leeks, Ricotta & Chives

Last weekend, Lucy and David slept out on the deck in the backyard. They didn't have a tent, or a screen porch. Just a blanket. They used the cushions from the outdoor furniture as pillows. They had stars as cover. It was a beautiful night and she fell asleep in his arms, in front of the fire. There were fire flies and the sounds crickets make from unknown, invisible places around the yard.

Edie and I slept indoors, of course. We happily hogged the whole bed, stretching out this way and that way across the bed. David wanted us to join them outside, but I'm not that kind of girl, I'm afraid. The last thing he said before I left them for the night was, "Don't worry, we'll come in if the bears try to eat us".


I realize he was joking, but I couldn't get the thought out of my head the whole night. (Thanks, David) And I also heard strange house sounds in the middle of the night and had to go to bed with my computer, running an old Top Chef episode, to keep from getting freaked out. I checked on them a few times during the night to make sure they were okay. They slept like the dead.

And in the morning, all was well. I found her there, sleeping in the morning sun.


And waking up happy.


And a little in awe of herself for having done such a cool, brave thing. That's when she started calling herself "Nature Girl".

We made egg crepes and ate them outside together, on the steps, with bare feet and plates in our laps, looking out into the woods, talking about all that might have happened around her as she slept. And we told her she was braver than her Mommy, but we all knew that. And then, I checked Nature Girl for ticks. Because that's just who I am.

YM xo
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Egg Crepes with Caramelized Leeks, Ricotta & Chives
Inspired by the "Skinny Omelete" at 101 Cook Books

For this recipe, store-bought ricotta is fine. But home-made ricotta is simple to make (the kids in Lucy's class made it and it was one of their easiest cooking challenges) and even more satisfying. And yes, you'll be able to taste the difference. In this case, the home-made is more delicate, cloud-like and supple. The texture between home-made and store bought, I think, is significant and making it from scratch is what turns this dish from a quick breakfast with the family into a special brunch worthy of a guest or two. The best ricotta recipe on the planet belongs to my friend Jennie Perillo. Don't make anyone else's.

Ingredients

3 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 Knob of butter
2 Leeks, cleaned and diced
Kosher Salt (to taste)
2 Large organic eggs
1 1/2 Tablespoons of cream
3 Tablespoons or so, chopped chives
4-6 Good-sized dollops of ricotta cheese

Preparation

You are going to need a nice big pan for this. I used cast iron, that or non-stick is definitely in order. If you have a crepe or omelet pan, use that. You want the egg to spread out across the pan and be thin, like a crepe.

In a pan, add a few drops of olive oil and a tablespoon or so of butter. Turn the heat to medium and let the butter and oil get warm. Add the leeks. Throw a little salt on them. Let them get soft and caramelized. If they start to fry, turn down the heat. It should take 10 minutes or so to get them soft and glistening.

While the leeks are cooking, crack the eggs into a bowl, add the cream and beat them together with a fork. They should be beaten well and thoroughly mixed together.

Pour a couple drops of olive oil in the pan and spread it over the bottom with a paper towel. Get the pan nice and hot over medium heat. The oil should glisten. Pour in the egg. Pick up the pan and move it around so the egg spreads out covering the entire bottom of the pan.

Wait about 30 seconds for the crepe to firm up a little. Add some of the carmelized onions in a line down the center of the crepe. Add 3/4 of your chives (saving the rest for garnish) and 3/4 of your ricotta (saving some also for garnish). Add a little sprinkle of salt. The egg is going to cook quickly, in a minute or so, so don't step away from the pan for long. Use a spatula to gently peel up the ends of the crepe. if you want to see how it's cooking, you can kind of look underneath.

When it is light brown and ready, turn off the heat (if you are using an electric stove, you might want to take it off the burner). Run the spatula under one side of the crepe, lift it up and fold it over so it's covering the leeks, cheese and chives. Do the same with the other side. Slide the spatula under the crepe, supporting the filling in the middle, and lift onto a plate.

Sprinkle a little salt onto the crepe. Garnish with leftover chives and flecks of ricotta. Serve immediately (although this tastes just fine eating it cold out of the fridge later)

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Vietnamese Baked Banana Cake (Banh Chuoi)

Before I launch into a story, I have to say right away that this is not one of those posts with one of those humdrum, pecan-infested, dry, boring banana cakes that never taste like banana and that your Aunt Bertie makes and sends to your house in a loaf pan and you are pretty sure that its actually a brick hidden in a cake pan.

This is not your mama's banana cake. Unless your mama is Vietnamese, in which case, it might actually be her cake.

I got this recipe from one of my mothers-in-law (I have two of them, both insanely sweet). While we were visiting David's Dad and his wife Trish in Australia a few weeks ago, Trish gave me this folder with pages of Australian and Vietnamese recipes. John and Trish often vacation in Vietnam and they have become students of Vietnamese cooking and food. They are also fond of sharing their food experiences, John often sends me videos of chefs and TV personalities I don't often get to see here, like Hugh Fearnley and Bill Granger. I bring the videos to the country house, wait until the kids are climbing trees or impaling themselves on garden equipment, pour myself a Sauvignon Blanc and watch these videos eagerly.



They have been so lovely about sending me things that inspire me to cook. They, along with David's mum, are special people and a model for how in-laws should be.


Anyway, I loved this folder of recipes because Trish had pasted together a bunch of dishes she thought would interest me and she was right on the money - Passion Fruit Shortcake, Anzac Biscuits, Pavlova, Raspberry Butter Creams, all God bless her, with an emphasis on sweets.

Some were written out in long-hand, others were copied from magazines and recipe cards. It was such a lovely thoughtful present. And at the top of the first page, was a recipe for Banh Chuoi, Baked Banana Cake. I had my eye on it the minute she gave it to me.

This is what it said at the top of the recipe:

I have not yet met a Vietnamese person who has not said that this cake is their favourite or that their mother makes the best version. Be warned, you won't be able to stop at one piece, so I've made this recipe big enough for seconds...and thirds.

Well, all I can say is thank God, because David and I ate this cake out of the refrigerator for two days until we finished the whole thing. A smaller cake just would not do. And this from a guy who thinks cake might be evil. I dare you just to eat one piece. Dare. You. It's impossible.

For one thing, the cake is banana dense. And it's banana dense mostly because the recipe calls for finger bananas, but of course, I missed that and used regular bananas. It felt like too many bananas during prep, so I reduced the number. But the banana intensity was great - when you bite into a piece, any piece, what you taste isn't cake with a hint of banana flavor, it's rich, satiny, baked, melted, sugared banana mini-slices that feel almost like thick pudding in your mouth.

It is surprising at first. You are expecting cake, but what you get is completely different. But then there is the hint of sweet cake there, muted, but there. And that's what I love most about this dessert, that it is a surprise, which I think makes it the perfect cake for a brunch or garden lunch. It is familiar, plain-looking, unadorned, frosting-less, but it is unusual, and surprising and unpredictable. Something to spur a little conversation among guests.

I also think this is a kid pleaser. Any kid who loves bananas will really love this cake because the cake is, quite simply, a vehicle for baked, sugary bananas. It also is a great cake for people who don't like to bake - it doesn't have all that baking soda, baking powder, fussy measuring nonsense and it has a minimal list of easy-to-get ingredients, which is great for folks with a limited pantry.

You will notice this is not a cake for lightweights. The recipe calls for seven eggs and 2 1/4 sticks of butter. Ha! How can this cake be bad?

Try this as your curtain call after the Pork Belly Bahn Mi (from last post).

xo YM
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Vietnamese Baked Banana Cake
(Adapted from a recipe with an unknown source)

Ingredients

12 finger bananas or 8 regular bananas (fairly ripe and pliable, but not brown)
1/4 cup sugar
7 eggs
1 13 1/2 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
2 1/4 sticks of butter (melted)
1 1/3 cup of flour

Preparation

Slice the bananas on the diagonal. You can have larger chunks if you prefer big melty bites of banana in your cake, but I did mine in thin slices, which worked well. Slice them into a bowl, add the sugar and move the bananas around until they are well-coated. Cover the bowl and set aside for 30 minutes. Don't refrigerate. Room temp is just fine.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a nice big cake pan with butter.

Beat the eggs. Melt the butter. Add condensed milk and melted butter to the beaten eggs. Add the flour to the mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. Then, add the bananas, gently folding them in until they are mixed throughout the batter.

Pour the batter into the greased cake pan and bake for 50 minutes or until the cake is cooked through and turns golden brown.

Take cake out of the oven. Let it cool a bit. Turn it over onto a serving platter and stow it away in the fridge for a bout an hour. Then, it will be ready to serve.

This cake does very well stored in the fridge. We kept it there for its short life and we ate piece after piece of it standing at the fridge door. It was heavenly.

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Latkes. With 20 Four Year Olds.

I'm not totally a fan of those blogs that break down every step of a recipe in pictures. It's nice - and reassuring as you can check your progress along the way through a recipe - but these step-by-step "do as I do" methods seem redundant and I don't know, controlling. Call me a rebel.

For me, cooking is not a reassuring, measured step-by-step process with one way to do it and all kinds of safe buttons and trap doors to keep one from going over the edge. Cooking is spurting, splattering oil, slashing knife blades, the sound of cool water running over the backs of plump vegetables. It is mistakes and blunders and knife wounds and burnt forearms.

It is the thrill of the perfect cassoulet and the agony of a full dining room of Australians and a Pavlova that looks like it has been run over by a postal truck. It is looking in your fridge and not knowing what the hell you are going to cook, and knowing that you just invited the neighbors for lunch, but undaunted you pull out five lame ingredients and somehow turn that into the best meal of the week.


It's about cooking above your station and figuring out you can create something much more amazing than you thought. It's also about stupifying blunders, like dry, over-done pork, fallen souffles, a dash of salt instead of a dash of sugar, cookies left in the oven until they burn to little black crisps, kitchen walls covered in pureed asparagus after the blender top flies off, a house full of people and dinner on the table 45 minutes too late, lamb that is cooked exactly as long as you think it should be cooked and instead, unfathomably, it is blood-soaked rare, despite what the meat thermometer tells you.


It's also about that last minute save, the sauce that you nearly threw in the trash because it was leaning toward the inedible, that you gave a second chance and lovingly cajoled and prodded and eased back into itself, to form what it should have been all along.

Cooking is a game of chance. A surprise. It is magic, with the big ta-da moment. An extreme sport. And this is why I think kids like it so much. It fits with their sense of danger, abandon, mischief and unmitigated passion.

So, you see here, the kids from Lucy's pre-k class.


Fearless little chefs, wielding box graters and dodging flying drops of boiling oil to make their creations, warriors all of them, and athletes, magicians, escape artists, inventors, adventurers to boot.

This time we made Latkes.





Tomorrow, we round out Hanukkah with Matzo Ball Soup. Next week, we'll be doing two days of Xmas Cookie Hell. I imagine sprinkles in hair and up noses.

I got this Latke recipe from Smitten Kitchen and I am printing it here nearly verbatim. But it's simple enough that you can eyeball the ingredients and fly free and loose just a little, which is great because that is how kids like to cook. Be damned, quality control. No measuring cups, just lots of living dangerously. Footloose, baby.

We only had a hot plate at our disposal and the oil never really got as hot as I would've hoped. The Latkes crisped up on the outside, but not as much as I would've liked before soaking up a little oil. But considering our second rate equipment, they turned out pretty darn good. And who doesn't love a little extra oil?


By the way, when I made a test batch at home in my very hot, cast iron pan, they crisped up beautifully. I served them to David topped with a poached egg, creme fraiche and chives. I had mine with a slice of Nova, creme fraiche and capers. Edie ate hers with ketchup. Lucy tried them, but decided they tasted too much like french fries and this month we hate french fries. She had egg whites lightly fried in butter.

But I had to ask myself...Why do I only make these once a year? They are awesome brunch food. Even for a Catholic girl.

xo YM

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Latkes (from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients

1 large baking potato (1 pound), peeled
1 small onion (4 ounces), peeled
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Peanut oil, for frying

Preparation

On a box grater, coarsely shred the potato and onion. (Grating onions can be pretty pungent, so you'll be doing this for the kids). Wrap in a cheesecloth sling, and squeeze as dry as possible. Let stand for 2 minutes, then squeeze dry again. (Kids really love the shredding and the squeezing).

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, egg, salt and pepper together. Stir in the potato onion mixture until all pieces are evenly coated.

In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil until shimmering. Drop packed teaspoons of the potato mixture into the skillet and flatten them with the back of a spoon. Cook the latkes over moderately high heat until the edges are golden, about 1 1/2 minutes; flip and cook until golden on the bottom, about 1 minute. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining potato mixture, adding more oil to the skillet as needed.

Do ahead: You can keep latkes warm in the oven for an hour or more, if you’re waiting for stragglers to arrive. Cooked, they keep well in the fridge for a day or two, or in the freezer, well wrapped, for up to two weeks. Reheat them in a single layer on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven until they’re crisp again. Bonus: If you undercooked them a bit or didn’t get the browning on them you’d hoped for, you can compensate for this in the oven.

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