PA Dutch Fastnacht cake ペンシルバニアダッチ ”ファストナハト” ケーキ

Although my wife is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in rural PA Dutch country and has many food memories associated with traditional PA Dutch dishes. Fastnachts or donuts were ubiquitous and taken for granted in her childhood. As a kid and until just this year, she always thought  "fastnachts day" just meant donut day. She never realized that "Fastnachts day", was the same as Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras i.e. the day before Ash Wednesday. Fastnachts were a way to use up the previous year's fat and sugar before lent.

(Digression alert: My wife told me, that while out "doing the rounds" with her father, he would occasionally stop at one of the old houses on main street of a nearby town for fastnachts. The residence was the local bakery. The living room of the house was the store front from which the baked goods were sold. The room was empty except for steel racks displaying the bake goods available that day. The kitchen of the house was where the magic happened. There was no counter or cash register. The baker, a portly man sporting a flour covered apron, would come out of the kitchen when they entered. They would point to the items on the shelves that they wanted and he would put them in a plain paper bag, take the payment and bid them a good day as they left with the goodies. And the donuts he made were certainly something for a kid to remember; particularly the creme donuts made with sweet rolls the size hamburger buns, cut in half with a full inch of sweet whipped cream filling and don't even get her started on the sticky buns).

My wife became sentimental about the fastnachts of her childhood and wanted to make some. She consulted her old PA Dutch cookbooks. The traditional fastnacht is a fried, potato based, yeast donut.  In our household division of cooking labor, I am chief-in-charge of frying. Although I am the one who introduced my wife, many years ago, to the concept, that you can make deep fried donuts at home, I was not keen on the idea of frying up two dozen large donuts which was the quantity the old recipes she consulted yielded. So, she compromised and in the same old cookbook found a recipe for "Fastnacht cake" and made that instead.

I forgot to take pictures when she removed the cake from the pan. So the cake was already cut by the time I took this pic. It has PA Dutch hallmarks of "crumb" topping.

The cake has yeast and potato in it. It is a cross between bread and cake.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup HOT mashed potato (please note the recipe specifies HOT)
1 1/2 cup potato water. (my wife used 1/2 cup potato water and the rest milk)
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
4 cups of AP flour to start, adding more as needed to make velvety dough.

Ingredients and directions for rivels (Crumb topping)
Mix together 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour and 2 tbs. butter softened until the ingredients are completely combined and look like fine crumbs.

Directions:
Put the hot mashed potatoes into the bowl of a mixer.
Beat in the butter, then the egg and a mixture of sugar, salt and nutmeg. Beat until fluffy. Bloom the yeast in warm water.
Beat the yeast into the potato mixture. Alternately add the flour and potato water/milk beating well after each addition (#1). (While adding the flour my wife accidentally dropped the mixing cup into the mixing bowl while the mixer was on. The result is shown in #2; bent mixing cup and a shower of flour all over everything...not recommended).
If necessary add more flour to make a soft dough.
Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and satiny(#3).
Put into a greased bowl. Grease the top of the dough, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled (#4).
Punch down the dough and divide into two portions. Fit each portion into a greased 8 x 8 x 2 in cake pan (#5).
Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with rivels (#6). Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (#7). Final product (#8).

This is typical of PA Dutch cakes-- baked like a pie with crumb topping. The texture, however, is unique and extremely pleasing. It is not really like a cake. It is moist and dense-- more like a pleasantly, not too, sweet bread. Despite the large amount of fresh nutmeg my wife used, it does not have a strong nutmeg flavor. My wife has never had this kind of cake before but we both really like it and are glad she "discovered" it. It is a perfect cake for breakfast.

Pork-Ricotta meatballs リコッタチーズ入りミートボール

I often make pork or chicken meatballs. I usually add eggs and panko to make them light and tender. Instead of frying, I usually bake them. I came across this recipe in the Wall street Journal. The original recipe was for lamb meatballs. Since I had my usual hand-chopped ground pork from the trimmings of pork tenderloin, I made meatballs with pork and my usual seasoning but added Ricotta cheese instead of bread crumbs. I served the meatballs with tomato sauce I made from fresh and skinned Campari tomato. I added blanched broccoli as a side.

My wife added some sweet potato Gnocchi she made some time ago and froze. She just cooked them simply in butter. This made it a complete dinner but I took the picture before the gnocchi was added so it does not appear.

Ingredients:
For meatballs:
1 lb ground pork (I used  hand chopped trimmings of pork tenderloins.)
1/3 lb whole milk Ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded, de-veined and finely chopped
3 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stem removed and finely chopped
2 eggs
1 tsp smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For tomato sauce:
1/4 cup olive oil
6 skinned fresh Campari tomatos, quartered  (I usually have this prepared over the weekend but when we do not finish them during the week, I use them to make tomato sauce)
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1/2 medium onion, finely minced
1/2 tsp each of dried oregano and basil
2 bay leaves
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
(Optional) 1/4 tsp baking soda (Although made form fresh Campari tomatos and the sauce is not too acidic I still add baking soda to further reduce acidity) and 1/4 tsp of sugar.

Directions:
For meatballs:
Sautee the onion, jalapeño and shiitake mushroom in olive oil until the onion is transparent. Season with salt and pepper. Let it cool to room temperature.
Mix all other ingredients into the onion mixture (I was going to adjust the consistency if it was too soft by adding bread crumbs or flour but it was just right and I did not add them).
Using a medium size ice-cream scoop, make meatballs and place it in a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil coated with olive oil.

The green is from jalapeño pepper.

I cooked it in a preheated 350F oven toaster in convection mode for 30 minutes. The bottom became flat but that does not bother me.

For tomato sauce:
Put the olive oil in a deep sautée pan on low heat and add the red pepper and garlic.
When the garlic is fragrant, add the onion and sautée for several minutes on medium flame until soft and transparent, add the campari tomatos with its juice, add the oregano, basil and bay leaves, mix and simmer until the sauce is reduced to the consistency you like (30-40 minutes).
Taste and add salt and sugar (optional).  I also added the baking soda. It causes the sauce to start foaming.  Keep stirring and let it simmer further until all the bubbles subside.

Adding Ricotta and Parmesan cheese made the meatballs very tender and flavorful. This is definitely more high fat meatball but certainly good. I may make this with ground lamb and more closely following the original recipe some day. By adding my wife's gnocchi, this was a well balanced and satisfying dinner that goes so well with red wine.

Japanese style beef steak salad 日本風ビーフステーキサラダ

This is a small starter dish I made from some leftover steak. Whenever (which is rather rare) we have beef steak, we usually do not finish it at the initial sitting and have leftovers for another meal. I usually make a carpaccio style salad dish from the leftovers but the amount of beef left this time was quite small. I decided to make a small Japanese style salad.

I garnished it with a chiffonade of perilla leaves and white sesame.

The sauce was essentially ponzu with some additions.

Ingredients:
Beef steak, cooked medium rare, thinly sliced (we used leftover steak, the amount is arbitrary)
One small red onion, thinly sliced, salted, kneaded, and then soaked in water for 5 minutes. Finally with the moisture rung out.
Half an inch of daikon, peeled, very thinly sliced and cut into very fine julienne (like for sashimi garnish), soaked in cold water for 5-10 minutes.

Dressing:
1 tbs Ponzu sauce
1 tbs concentrated noodle sauce
1/2 tbs Yuzu juice (fresh is better but I only had the kind in a jar)
1/2 tbs roasted dark sesame oil

Garnish:
Perilla leaves, cut in fine chiffonade, I used one leaf per serving.
Roasted  white sesame seeds, sprinkled on top

Directions:
Just mix everything except for the garnish, place it in a small bowls and garnish.

This is remarkably good dish. The perilla really made it. Adding the yuzu juice added nice Yuzu flavor. The red onion and daikon were very mild and added to the volume of the dish as well as their flavors and texture.

Maple and cranberry drumsticks メープル、クランベリー鶏のスネ肉

I bought a package of chicken drumsticks without any firm idea of how I was going to cook them. Then, I came across this recipe in the Washington Post. Since I had "figgy" cranberry sauce, I gave it a go. I served it as a drinking snack with my potato salad and coleslaw.

Since I scored around the bone, the meat shrank a bit to make a nice handle to grab and the marinade became sauce which clung to the surface.

Ingredients:
2 pounds chicken drumsticks
4 tablespoons cranberry sauce ( I used the "figgy" cranberry sauce I made).
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried sage (may substitute 1 to 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage)

Directions:
1. Use a sharp chef’s knife or cleaver to cut off the end, or ankle, of each drumstick. Discard them.
2. Place the drumsticks in a gallon-size zip-top bag, along with the cranberry sauce, maple syrup, oil, a four-finger pinch each of the salt and pepper, and the sage.
3. Seal and massage through the bag to coat evenly. Lay the bag in a glass or ceramic baking dish that is large enough to hold the drumsticks in a single layer. Let sit for 1 hour at room temperature, turning the bag over a few times, or refrigerate up to overnight.
4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Open and pour the contents of the bag into the baking dish, arranging the drumsticks in a single layer. Turn to coat with all the sauce you can extract from the bag.
5. Roast (top rack) for about 45 minutes, until the chicken is golden brown and cooked through, using tongs to turn the drumsticks about halfway through the oven time.

This is not bad but to us, this is a bit too sweet because of the figgy cranberry sauce and the addition of maple syrup. Certainly this would be a good finger food for a party.

Double pork bowl ダブル豚丼

This is sort of leftover control but it was pretty good. On the previous weekend, we ended up getting quite a large pork loin roast. Instead of cooking all of it one way, I decided to divide it into two portions. From one half, I made several loin chops which I made into "tonkatsu" pork cutlet and from the other half, I made Japanese/Chinese style pot roast or "chasu" pork (in this version, I also used star anise). Toward the end of the week, I made this double pork bowl using both the tonkatsu and the pot roast.

I heated the tonkatsu in the toaster oven. For the pot roast pork, I added sliced onion and the pork with the cooking liquid in a small frying pan and cooked the onion until soft and the meat was heated up. I just put these two kinds of pork on a bed of rice.  I poured the juice from the pan over the onion and pot roast pork, then placed the sliced tonkatsu and added tonkatsu sauce. For the green, I also added blanched broccoli.

The pot roast was the very last piece left.

As leftover control dish was pretty good.

Cappuccino and the new frother カプチーノ

At home, we almost exclusively drink espresso or espresso-based coffee. On the weekend, we usually have cappuccinos in the morning with breakfast. In the late morning, we have macchiatos. Sometimes, in the afternoon, we have straight espressos.

We went though several iterations of espresso makers. We have been using an Italian-made basic espresso machine called Rancilio Silvia for more than 10 years. We are on the 4th and probably best model we have had. Before this one, we used Gaggia classic which also made decent espresso coffee. Silvia is a totally manual model without anything automatic or fancy. It has only one boiler so you have to wait  (probably close to 1 minute) for the boiler to heat up for steaming the milk after brewing the coffee.

It requires some effort but it does make a good espresso and also steam. It froths the milk adequately for cappuccino and latte. I have replaced and upgraded parts during the year but one advantage of owning Silvia is many 3rd party tune-up/ improvement parts in addition to the replacement parts are readily available. One noteworthy is  the flat shower screen (with flat screw head). Being an Italian machine, the screw head of the original shower screen protruded which made an indentation mark and broke the integrity of surface of the coffee pack  (since the Italian method does not make a "pack" of coffee grind but uses loose coffee when brewing espresso, this may not be a problem for them).

The frother of Silvia is a no-frill basic steam wand and requires some practice to make nice froth but the froth is not as stable or creamy as one made with a commercial espresso machine. Recently, I got a milk frother Nespresso Aeraoccino4 and it works really well. It is rather small and I have to run it twice for 2 cups of cappuccino or latte but it can make small amounts of frothed cream for macchiato. the Breville model can handle larger amounts but not a small amount of cream for macchiato.

To prevent overflowing, it is important not to overfill beyond the max line for frothing milk. It does produce a very creamy stable foam and heats up the milk nicely.

The picture below shows the pattern on the crema indicating good extraction. Silvia is very pesky to have a perfect dose and grind. I use low-speed bur grinder Rancillio Rocky grinder to get the perfect fineness of the coffee grinds. I tamp it only lightly. The machine also requires regular cleaning (back flush using a blank back flush basket with detergent - I use Cafiza) once a week and descale the machine using espresso decalcifier/descaler once a month. Since I use reverse osmosis filtered water, I do not have much of a calcium deposit problem. There are articles explaining how to make good espresso using Rancilio Silvia.

We get green beans (several espresso blends) and roast them at home (using both hot air and direct heat drum roasters) but that is for another time.

Braised Japanese sweet yam with pork さつま芋と豚肉のきんぴら

I made this dish since we had leftover Japanese sweet yam. I braised this like I would "gobo" burdock root.

I could have added deep fried tofu or abura-age to the dish to make it vegetarian but I used strips of pork instead and garnished it with black sesame (white sesame may have been better).

Ingredients:
Japanese "satsumaimo" sweet yam, washed and thinly sliced and then julienned (amount arbitrary, here I used 1/3 of medium yam)
Pork cut into strips (again the amount is arbitrary, I used pork tenderloin but pork belly would be better).
2 tsp peanuts oil and 1/4 tsp of dark sesame oil
2 tsp each of soy sauce and mirin

Directions:
In a wok, add oil and heat up on medium high flame. Once the oil is heated up, add the pork and stir until the color changes. Add the sweet yam and stir to coat (below picture).

Add the mirin and then the soy sauce and braise until most of the liquid is gone (see below).

Compared to a classic burdock root kinpira, this one is still bit crunchy and fresh tasting. Perfect small dish for Japanese sake.