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Pigging Out

After living through a tad too much drama last summer with the cooking of a whole lamb, J and I turned to a pro this year, perusading our friend Tom McNary, the brilliant chef at Carried Away in Aptos, to perform the beast roasting. This ranks as one of our best ideas of 2008.

Tom brined the piglet for two days and created a sublime roasted garlic sauce to accompany the meat. He also brought big dishes of Carried Away’s superb potato-artichoke gratin, so my usual holiday cooking marathon was more like a 5-K run.
More help came from our friend Pedro’s exquisite home-smoked salmon for appetizers, but I still managed to log considerable time in the kitchen, preparing:
*Puff-pastry tartlets filled with blue cheese and served warm
*Za’atar chips with hummus
*Olives seasoned with garlic, orange zest and herbes de Provence
*Almonds sauteed with fresh rosemary and pink Hawaiian salt
*Cole slaw made with savoy cabbage, fennel, thin slivers of Stockton Red onions from our garden and celery seed
*Broiled eggplant slices with a tiny touch of balsamic and lots of chopped fresh mint
*Sliced heirloom tomatoes
*Whole strawberries
*Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
*Coffee chocolate chip cookies
and
*Flo Braker’s Chocolate Cake Squares — a huge hit with a crowd that usually skips dessert in order to save room for s’smores around the beach bonfire.

There’s a nostalgia-inducing old-fashioned flavor and moistness about these that works well with informal summer meals. They do tend, however, to push one towards the slippery slope of Just-One-More. And then, One-More. After the other guests had left, my friend, R., who is slim as a reed, slid merrily down said slope, nearly eating himself out of his runway-sample-size Gucci jeans.

Flo Braker’s Chocolate Cake Squares
[from "The Simple Art of Perfect Baking"]

Batter
4 ounces unsalted butter
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup unflavored vegetable oil
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsifted cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Glaze
1 pound (3 1/4 cups) unsifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsifted cocoa powder
6 TB. milk
4 ounces unsalted butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Put rack in lower third of the oven; preheat to 350-degrees.
Generously grease and flour a 10–x-15-x-1-inch jelly roll pan

Melt the 4-ounces of butter in a small saucepan. Remove from heat; cool 5 minutes and then add water and oil.
Break eggs into a bowl and whisk to combine. Add buttermilk and vanilla.
Pour flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in that order into a triple sifter and sift into a large bowl.
Add the fat and water mixture and blend on medium-low speed for 30-45 seconds. Add the buttermilk mixture and blend another 30-45 seconds, just until smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, beginning around the edge of the pan and then into the center. With a rubber spatula, manipulate the batter from the center so it’s higher along the sides (this assures a more level surface after baking.)
Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until the cake springs back slightly when lightly touched in the center and the sides begin to contract from the pan.

While the cake is baking, begin the glaze preparation.
Pour the powdered sugar and cocoa into a triple sifter and sift into a 3-quart mixing bowl.
Pour the milk into a small saucepan, add the 4 ounces of butter and melt over low heat.
When the cake has finished baking, remove it to a cooling rack. Pour the hot milk mixture into the powdered sugar mixer and stir to combne. Add the vanilla. Pour the mixture through the sieve over the bowl and push it through with the aid of a rubber spatula. Immediately pour the glaze over the hot cake and spread with the spatula. Spread the glaze just to cover; then stop. The heat from the cake will keep the glaze liquid enough to spread, but too much manipultion of the glaze will dull its finish.

Tags: Carried Away, chocolate cake squares, Flo Braker, roasting a whole pig, Tom McNary

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 4:41 pmand is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.