I know, I know, broken record — but it’s that time of year again, isn’t it? The farmers’ market had loads of beautiful organic apples, so I consulted with the seller and bought a few opalescents. Isn’t that a great name, by the way? It seemed impossible to go wrong making brunch with them, like the whole affair would be graced by their jewelled name.
So I started with my basic bread pudding recipe and changed the blueberry filling (everything from blueberries down in the ingredient list), adding caramelized apples instead. I peeled, cored, and sliced three small opalescents, sautéed them in a couple tablespoons of butter, then added about a tablespoon of brown sugar (they were the tiniest bit tart), a few heavy sprinkles of cinnamon, and a whisper of mace. Once the apples started to brown and caramelize in the pan, I added them to the bread mixture, then set it to bake. About 45 minutes later, I opened the oven to find an airily puffed and browned bread pudding that seemed more like a virtuous apple pie than anything else.
This’ll be my go-to recipe for the fall into winter, I think. Gil and I agreed that the blueberries I favor in summer can sometimes be a little overwhelming, but the apples were a perfect marriage with the rest of the pudding. I won’t be kicking the bananas foster version to the curb anytime soon, but this one was more brunch, less dessert — perfect for a girl lacking a sweet tooth.
With lots of time to cook on weekends, I like to skip the healthy yogurt of my weekday mornings and indulge a little. During summer, my go-to brunch moves from bread pudding to more seasonal fare — roasted tomatoes and asparagus with soft scrambled eggs. No one respects the egg more than a French chef, so I pulled my old, battered copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from the bookshelf to make sure I’d get them right. Ordinarily, I’d just get to cooking without consulting a cookbook, but if you’ve ever had French-style scrambled eggs, you know how important it is to cook them just so — the end result should be soft, creamy, curds custardy in texture and positively rich with butter.
Turns out, it’s really quite a simple recipe. You start with a cold pan and cook over very low heat while stirring constantly, which is basically the exact opposite of how I usually make scrambled eggs. But the extra effort is definitely worth it.
As Julia would say, “Bon appetit!”
recipe after the jump
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Sunday brunch has long been my favorite meal of the week. It’s a huge deal in New Orleans, and I’d always indulge whenever I found myself there after a long night of doing what college kids do on Saturday night. (No, never Bourbon Street — we had some standards.) Once I moved to the working world after grad school, my cravings went unsatisfied; I was the hardest-working woman in St. Louis on Sundays, you see. After my gig as minister of music at a local church, I went straight to my day job for a double shift of putting the catalog to bed for the week. Saturday brunches just weren’t the same, somehow, so I sucked it up until I moved to NY and got to enjoy the boozy brunches offered all over the city.
Sadly, there aren’t any places in Ringwood for a proper brunch, so I’m left to my own devices when the mood strikes. And strike it did this very morning. So, inspired by a Mario Batali recipe, I decided to make use of lovely hen of the woods mushrooms from Trader Joe’s and tomatoes from my friend Mew’s garden (lucky duck, her yard gets plenty of sunshine and no deer at all).
I didn’t want the typical scrambled/fried/poached egg and bacon axis — though a side of bacon was a no-brainer — and remembered a baked egg recipe from Orangette I’d been meaning to try. (Btw, she’s getting married today — let’s all send good thoughts her way!) Apart from my ramekins being too small (which later spelled disaster), it seemed like an easy enough recipe to attempt in my morning-addled state.
I washed the mixing bowl thoroughly to remove any speck of grease and set the whites to whipping. As the stand mixer was doing its thing, I grated the cheese and greased the ramekins. It all went smoothly, though I made a couple of extras just in case my previous bad luck with meringues/soufflés continued.
While a couple of yolks went Frank Lee Morris on me, the other two remained where they should’ve and put a fine spin on the typical eggy brunch dish. The yolks were blanketed with creme fraiche and nestled into delicate clouds of cheese with the faintest crunch on the edges. Yummmmmm…
Despite the rich cream, this was the most ephemeral of brunch dishes and one I’ll definitely try again, only next time with larger ramekins.
recipes after the jump
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Those of you who check out this site from time to time may know of my obsession with bread pudding. It’s all I can do NOT to make one every weekend with whatever variants of bread and fruit we have lying around, but I’ve been health-conscious of late. I don’t think we’ve indulged since before Passover, which is far too long for someone like me.
So when I read about Broadway Panhandler’s Bread Pudding Recipe Exchange Week Taste Off this morning at the always-informative Megnut, I could barely contain my excitement. Meet me there Wednesday? It’ll be amazing. I always imagined myself as more of a BBQ judge, but only because I didn’t know bread pudding competitions existed.
Check out the recipes link in the right column for a few of my favorite bread pudding recipes.
Update: Attend the Taste Off at your own risk. (via The Agitator)
