Two holiday recipes!

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but I thought I'd share a great quick bread recipe. This was a big hit at a party I had to cook for.

Royal Irish Soda Bread from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum



Oven temperature- 375°

1 scant cup raisins or currants
½ cup Irish whiskey or hot water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ liquid cup plus 1 tablespoon
1 tablespoon caraway seeds (this is my own addition)

1. Soak the raisins/currants in whiskey or water for half an hour or until softened. Drain and reserve remaining whiskey for Irish whiskey butter (next recipe).

2. Preheat the oven to 375° for twenty minutes before baking.

3. Mix and knead the dough. Cut butter into 8 pieces so it will soften and be easier to blend into the flour.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, caraway seeds, and salt. Using your fingertips or a pastry blade, blend in the butter until the mixture resembles soft crumbs. Stir in the raisins/currants. Add the buttermilk and stir until moistened and the dough comes together.

Empty the dough onto a flat surface and knead 8 times. Scrape dough if it sticks to surface- don’t add more flour if possible.

4. Shape the dough. Roll dough into a six inch round. Place on a prepared baking sheet (book suggests parchment paper, but I used PAM. It worked well.).

5. Bake the bread for 30 minutes until it is golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Cool the bread on a rack.

Irish Whiskey Butter

3 tablespoons Irish whiskey
1 tablespoon sugar
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

In a small microwavable bowl, stir together whiskey and sugar. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave for about 20 seconds or until hot. Stir to dissolve sugar, cover and allow to cool completely.

With a whisk or spoon, gradually stir whiskey mixture into the butter until incorporated. It will be a caramel brown color. Serve with Irish soda bread. Can be stored in the refrigerator for two weeks.


This is just about the best recipe for Irish soda bread I've found. The only changes I made were to add the caraway seeds and to use currants instead of raisins.

This is a great baking book...I also love Beranbaum's Cake Bible.


From today's Easter dinner...

Spanokapita

This recipe was adapted from a cookbook compiled as a library fund raiser almost a decade ago. My mother and I tweaked the recipe, adding seasoning and pine nuts, as well as deciding to make individual pies instead of one big pie, as the original recipe called for. I've made it for every family Easter dinner for the last ten years, and it is always a hit.

1 package filo dough
1 stick butter
8 ounces ricotta cheese
4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
2 small packages feta cheese
2 eggs
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 (10 ounce) packages frozen spinach, boiled, drained, with excess water squeezed out
3 tablespoons pine nuts, slightly toasted
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 350°.


Mix together the cheeses, spinach, garlic, eggs, pine nuts, seasoning, and onion. Let the mixture chill for at least an hour.

Melt the butter. Set aside. Place filo dough on wax paper, cover with damp towel to keep dough from drying out.

Working quickly, take one sheet of filo and brush with butter. Fold the sheet in half lengthwise. Take one tablespoon of spinach mixture and add it to one end of the dough. Fold the dough into triangles as if folding a flag, using more butter to stick the sheets together. Repeat with new sheet of filo. Brush the top of each pie with more butter, and bake until browned, at least 25 minutes.

This recipe should make about 36 pies.



My usual Easter menu includes these pies, ham, lamb, asparagus, scalloped potatoes, and pineapple au gratin (that recipe was posted here several months ago). The pies are usually the most quickly devoured...

Still cooking!

Wow! I haven't updated in four months! I've been trying out a lot of new recipes, but just haven't gotten around to posting them. Here are two that I've tried recently:


Spaghetti with Mushrooms, Garlic, and Parsley

From Lidia’s Italian Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

Salt
¼ cup olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1 ½ pounds assorted mushrooms, cleaned and sliced ¼ inch thick (about six cups)
Freshly ground black pepper
8 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 pound spaghetti
1 cup vegetable broth or water
¼ cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 cup fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook garlic in skillet until golden, about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and toss in salt, pepper, and sage. Cook mushrooms until they wilt, then until they are sizzling and brown, about ten minutes (boil off any liquid the mushrooms give off first).

Cook spaghetti until al dente.

Add the broth to the mushrooms and cook until the liquid is reduced by half.

Drain pasta, and add mushroom mixture to pot. Add parsley and bring the pasta and sauce to a boil. Add more salt and pepper if desired. Remove from heat, add cheese, and serve.

Makes 6 servings.

I left out the sage, and added ¼ cup chopped fresh basil instead. I used a combination of white and porcini mushrooms (there were no suggestions in the book), but any combination of mushrooms will work. This is a lovely main course or a side dish for meat or seafood dishes (I made it with turkey scallopine with lemon sauce).

Baked Rigatoni with Cauliflower in a Spicy Pink Sauce

From Fine Cooking magazine, March 2007

3 Tbs. olive oil
2 28-oz. cans whole tomatoes
1 pound yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 ¼ tsp. kosher salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
½ tsp. crushed red peppers
1 pound rigatoni
1 pound cauliflower, cut into 1 to 1 ¼ inch florets (about 4 cups)
10 oz. shredded Fontina cheese (about 2 ½ cups)
2 oz. freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about ¾ cup)

Heat oven to 450°.

Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with 1 Tbs. olive oil.

Pour off 1 cup of juice from one of the cans of tomatoes and discard. Purée tomatoes and remaining juice in a food processor or blender.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and ¼ tsp. salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Push onions to one side of the pot and add garlic, cooking until it begins to sizzle, about 10 seconds.

Add puréed tomatoes, cream, and remaining salt (add slowly to avoid splattering). Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, then cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally so the sauce thickens somewhat. Add the parsley and pepper flakes, and cook until the flavors meld (about 5 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

Cook rigatoni until slightly al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain and add to the sauce. Cook cauliflower until barely tender, about 2 minutes, and add to pasta mixture.

Add 1 ½ cups shredded Fontina to the pasta and toss well. Transfer to the baking dish, and top with remaining Fontina and the Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Bake uncovered until the cheese is golden brown, about 15 minutes. Let the pasta stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 6 to 8.

Be careful with the crushed red peppers! A little goes a long way. I actually only used half of the amount in the recipe, and the dish was still very spicy.