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Every once in a while, my ice maker makes a sound that sounds like the call of the Northern Loon – albeit a very distant and – now that I’ve actually written that down – exceptionally sad loon. For me, it’s a sound associated with summers in Northern Ontario. For my wife (who thinks I’m nuts because I keep saying the ice maker sounds like a loon) it’s a sound from home – a sound from her childhood in New Hampshire.
The loon that is. Not the ice maker.
We were both born in Boston though a few blocks and a few years apart. Her family has lived in New England for generations. My family moved to Ohio not long after I was born. Nonetheless, New England remained a big part of my life: my parents’ stories of hiking and canoeing in Maine and Massachusetts, time spent on Cape Cod and the islands. Eventually my sister moved to Maine for college, and my brother now lives just outside Boston.
There were foods from that region that quietly slid into my family’s meal rotation: “Boiled Dinner” and clam or corn chowder, the very occasional lobster, sweet cornbread, and more than once I saw one parent or the other melt a slice of cheddar over a piece of apple pie.
This week’s menu probably isn’t an “authentic” New England meal. I’m not an authentic New Englander (though last week I realized that I own a Red Sox hat that is older than many actual members of the Boston Red Sox.) No, this menu is me remembering flavors and dishes from a place I love
Also it’s leaf peeping, baking spice, baseball play-off, sweaters and flannels season – so what’s better than a hearty New Englandish meal. Or you could just go to Dunkin.
Corn Sticks with Molasses Butter
A disclaimer for my southern friends. This is Yankee cornbread. It’s sweet. It’s also delicious, and sort of straddles that line between bread and cake - which mostly means you have an excuse to eat cake before dessert. I admit, I mostly want an excuse to buy and use one of these corncob shaped cast iron pans.
These sweet corn breads can be a starter, a bread course, or if you’re feeling really ambitions – make them for breakfast and top them with butter and of course, real maple syrup.
1 14 oz can sweet corn.
2 cups yellow corn meal
¼ cup whole milk
1 large egg
½ cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp double acting baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Add the corn to the container of a high-speed blender and process util smooth.
Add the corn meal, sugar, salt, and baking powder to a large bowl, and use a whisk to combine well.
In another bowl, beat together the eggs and milk, and combine with the the melted butter, and corn puree.
Fold the liquid into the dry mixture and stir gently to remove any clumps.
Allow the batter to rest ten minutes, then pour into greased molds or a large well-greased pan.
Bake a 400°F.
Serve warm.
Molasses Butter
8 tbsp softened unsalted butter
1 tbsp unsulfured molasses
¼ tsp kosher salt
Use a silicon spatula to blend the salt, molasses, and butter.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour after mixing and allow to soften at room before use.
Corn Chowder
A few years ago, I started on a project I called. “The Fifty (and then some).” I meant it to be a blog or even a book that chronicled (and provided recipes for) iconic foods of every state, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and pretty much any part of the United States I could.
I never early got it off the ground, mostly because at the time I was working the sort of job where an 80-hour week is considered relaxing, and I used my time off for extracurricular pleasures like obsessively checking my email in the middle of the night and watching all of the Sunday morning news shows.
Regardless, it was a lot of fun learning about different unique food and culinary traditions from all over the country. I used a huge spreadsheet to keep track of appetizers, desserts, drinks, and entrees. For some states and territories, there were well known dishes or specialties that I’d had while traveling or could get my hands on in other cities. Sometimes I had to consult the web or even other resources and fall back on the state legislature’s designation of “State Dish” or “State Dessert.’
I don’t even know if it’s accurate, but somehow “Corn Chowder” ended up in my New Hampshire entry.
I grew up with a thin milk or half and half-based version of corn chowder. Basically, a think clam chowder with canned corn standing in for the clams – which since I lived in Ohio and we’re talking about the 1970s would also have been canned. This version doesn’t use half & half, but it does used canned corn. It comes together pretty quickly and makes a great weeknight meal. I’m a big fan of bacon, but you can easily make this meat free by swapping the bacon and bacon fat for butter, or even margarine if you’re shooting for vaguely vegan.
Oh, and I just put the chili oil on there to look pretty. You definitely don’t need it.
2 14 oz cans sweet corn
½ cup white wine
2 medium russet potatoes
2 slices thick cut bacon
1 medium onion
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 oz sherry
Peel and cut the potatoes into ½ inch cubes.
Peel, trim and finely dice the onion.
Slice the bacon into small pieces.
Add the bacon to a thick bottomed pan over medium heat.
Cook until the bacon is crisp, and the fat has rendered out.
Add the onion to the pan along with the bacon and cook until soft and translucent.
Add the wine to the pan and use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape up any bits stuck to the pan.
Add one can of corn and 1 cup cool water to the container of a high-speed blender, process until very smooth.
Add the corn puree and the diced potatoes to the pan and bring to a simmer.
Once the potatoes are tender, season with salt and pepper, and finish with sherry.
Yankee Pot Roast
About a year ago, I posted a recipe that I titled something like “not my mother’s pot roast.” The thing is, that was my mother’s post roast. I just replaced the convenience items that were a staple of my 1970’s childhood kitchen with what I think of as “real” ingredients. Some of that was snobbery. Some of that was and is that I enjoy the challenge of building flavors up from their base elements. But in the end that dish still really is my mother’s pot roast.
This isn’t.
Yankee Pot roast – I’d never heard it called that until a lot later in life – was a lot more like a dish my grandmother made. A piece of normally fairly tough meat slowly braised with aromatic vegetables until it was nearly fork tender.
Here, we’ll use chuck, because the relatively high fat content and high gelatin content of the meat make for an unctuous sauce. I’m also a little fussier than need be and add the vegetables in two stages – the first to flavor the meat over a long slow cook are discarded (they’re basically mush at the point anyway) and a second batch added toward the end where they soak up all that delicious pot-roast flavor, but still end up as recognizable versions of themselves.
2 lbs Chuck Roast
½ cup white wine
4 cups beef stock
2 medium parsnips
1 lb small yellow potatoes
1 large turnip
4 large carrots
4-6 large stalks celery
1 large onion
1 medium shallot
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp kosher salt
2 sprigs rosemary
2 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs fresh parsley
2 bay leaves
½ tsp Sweet Spice (opt - equal parts ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, clove)
Preheat your oven to 300°F.
Wash and trim 2 of the carrots.
Wash and half two of the celery stalks.
Peel, trim, and half the onion.
Peel, trim, and half the shallot.
Peel, trim, and dice the parsnips. Reserve the small end.
Bunch the parsley, rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves together, and use a length of cooking twine to tie into a bouquet garni (a bundle that makes it easy to fish out of the pot later.)
Start an ovenproof pan or Dutch oven over medium high heat.
Season the chuck roast generously with salt and pepper, and brown in the pan – turning once.
Add the white wine and use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape any brown bits.
Add the stock, any remaining salt and pepper, the bouquet garni, two carrots, two stalks of celery, the small turnip ends, the shallot, ½ the onion, and the sweet spice if using.
Bring the pot to a simmer.
Transfer into the oven and cook uncovered for 3-4 hours (depending on the size of the roast), adding extra stock or liquid as needed to keep the liquid ¾ of the way up the roast and turning the roast once.
Peel, trim, and cut the remaining carrots into 2-inch pieces.
Peel, trim, and dice the turnip.
Clean, trim, and cut the remaining celery stalks into 2-inch pieces.
Wash and peel the potatoes.
Cut the remaining ½ onion into 2-inch pieces
Remove the pot from the oven.
Remove the celery, carrots, onions, shallot, and parsnip (everything but the beef and the bouquet garni) from the pot and discard.
Add the potatoes, carrots, turnip, parsnip, celery, and onion, and bring to a simmer.
Return to the oven and cook 1 hour.
Check for seasoning, and re-season with additional salt and pepper if needed. Discard the bouquet garni before serving.
Maple Apple Crostata
If you’re a regular reader you’ve already herald me lament my lack of dessert making skill. It’s really not me fishing for compliments. I struggle with it because I don’t really have the attention span, the patience, or the precision to be a great maker of sweets. I tend to settle for the slapdash recipes, more forgiving techniques,. and the almost intuitive, meditative process of baking breads..
Crostatas are both both slapdash and forgiving in technique. I can’t make a pretty pie crust for the life of me, so a style of pie where you get to sort of just wad it all up together, bake it off, and declare it rustic is just about perfect.
Because this is a New England themed menu, I’ve glazed the apples with maple syrup. You don’t have to – you could just go with the very simple old school pie flavors, but maple syrup isn’t just a “It’s sweaters and PSL and leaf peeping season so we’ll put this stuff on everything” No. Maple syrup is legit amazing – and it’s really very much especially totally weird to think that boiled tree blood tastes anywhere near that good.
4 medium baking apples
2 cups plus 2 tbsp AP Flour
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 oz vodka
~1/4 cup ice water
¼ cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp corn starch
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp kosher salt
Add 2 cups of flour, 4 tbsp of cold butter and ½ tsp kosher salt to the container of a food processor and pulse until a coarse meal forms.
Add the vodka and pulse to combine.
Turn the machine on and drizzle the water into the dough until just beginning to come together.
Turn out the dough and knead lightly to form a ball.
Press the ball down into a disk, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Peel, core, and cut the apples into quarters.
Toss the apple quarters with the sugar, flour, 1 tsp of the maple syrup, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Roll out the dough into a thin disk about 1/8 inch thick.
Arrange the apples on the center of the disk, and fold the dough in over the apples, leaving an opening in the center.
Beat the egg with a tbsp of cold water, and brush the outside of the crust with egg wash.
Bake the pie at 400°F until the crust is browned and the apples are soft. If the crust begins to look too dark before the apples are cooked, tent with foil and continue cooking.
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.
In a small pan, whisk together the cornstarch and remaining maple syrup.
Bring to a simmer, and pour over the center of the pie, working to make sure the apples are evenly coated.
Cool to room temperature and enjoy with whipped cream, whipped crème fraiche, or vanilla ice cream.
Or you know, put some cheese on it.