Best new pie on the table: Chocolate Walnut Bourbon Pie

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
Each Thanksgiving I like to make new stuff along with the classics. This year I tried and modified a recipe from The New York Times for a chocolate nutty pie and it was super yummy. Here are the details:



Ingredients for the crust
2 cups all-purpose flour (plus more for rolling out dough)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
4 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vinegar
4 tablespoons ice water, or as much as needed for dough to hold together

Ingredients for the filling
2 cups Walnut halves
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup dark corn syrup
4 large eggs
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons bourbon
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Procedure
Start with the crust. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, pulse together the flour and salt. Add butter and vegetable shortening and pulse until the mixture forms chickpea-size pieces. Combine egg yolk, vinegar, and ice water and add 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough just comes together. It should be moist but not wet. On a lightly floured surface, gather the dough into a ball. Flatten into a disk with the heel of your hand. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Remove plastic wrap and roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle. Transfer crust to a 9-inch pie plate. Fold over any excess dough, then crimp edges. Prick crust all over with a fork. Chill crust for 30 minutes.

While the dough chills, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line chilled crust with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until very pale golden, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Remove from oven and reduce temperature to 350 degrees.

While the crust bakes, melt butter and chopped chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth; set aside to cool. In a large bowl, whisk together cooled chocolate-butter mixture, corn syrup, eggs, sugar, cocoa powder, bourbon, and salt. Spread the walnuts in the crust and pour chocolate mixture over top. Transfer to a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the filling is just set when the pan is jiggled, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove pie from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before serving.

Muhammara and Rosemary Yogurt Flatbread

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
This week I have been thinking about some new hors d’oeuvres to add to my repitoire and I tried these items and I think they have great potential so here they are. An unusual dip and some all purpose flatbread.

Muhammara

Ingredients
1 cup walnuts
3 stove roasted red peppers, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 tablespoons whole wheat bread crumbs
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon Sambal
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon cumin
Olive oil and parsley for garnish

Procedure
In a dry hot skillet, toast the walnuts until they start to get a little brown — not burnt — and smell good. Remove from skillet and let cool. In the food processor, combine all ingredients except olive oil and parsley and blend till smooth. Top with oil and parsley and serve with dipping bits like bread or veggies.

Rosemary Yogurt Flatbread

From the El Farol: Tapas and Spanish Cuisine

Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups plain yogurt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Procedure
Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Stir in yogurt. Knead till a smooth dough forms. In a lightly oiled bowl, let dough rest at room temperature for 1 hour covered with a damp cloth. Cut cough into 12 pieces and roll each into a ball. Then roll out each ball into a 1/4 inch thick disc. Heat a stovetop cast iron grill, which you have oiled with the veggie oil. Cook one piece of bread at a time 2 minutes on the first side, 1 minute on the other side. Serve warm.

Chicken Fesejan

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
I had this marvelous dish in a Persian Café in Chicago years ago and it has always stuck with me. The flavors are dark and complex, so serve over simple basmati rice. The fragrance is wonderful, and the taste complex.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
2 small onions, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 1/2 cups walnuts, finely ground
2/3 cup pomegranate syrup
2 1/2 cups stock or water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons saffron (optional)
2 limes, juice of
2 1/2 to 3 pounds of bone-in poultry, of choice

Procedure
Heat butter or oil over medium heat in a large Dutch oven. Add onions and sauté until wilted and translucent. Add garlic, cinnamon and nutmeg and sauté, stirring, for another 1-2 minutes. Stir in walnuts, pomegranate syrup, stock, sugar, salt, pepper and saffron. Adjust sugar and salt to taste. Bring to a low boil and simmer 1/2 hour. Add chicken and simmer on low heat another 60 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, add the lime juice to taste. The sauce will thicken and darken during this cooking time, and the oil will begin to render out of the walnuts. Add water or stock if necessary to prevent the sauce from thickening too much and scorching. Serve over Basmati rice.

Pecan or Walnut Bourbon Pie in a Nut Crust

The Altitude Adjustment Section
Pecan or walnut pie is pretty simple and tasty. But at this altitude, they get tricky and often kind of blow up in the oven. So of course, I went to my baking mentor Susan Purdy for the altitude adjustment to make it work perfectly. And Susan kicks it up a notch with a nut crust as well. Yahoo!

Ingredients for crust
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans
6 tablespoons unsalted chilled butter, cut up
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening
1 room temp egg yolk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3-5 tablespoons ice water

Procedure for crust
Preheat your oven to 425 and position rack in the bottom 1/3 of the oven. In the bowl of food processor, add together flour, sugar, salt, and nuts and process till nuts are finely chopped. Add butter and shortening and pulse 8 or 9 times, till mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add yolk, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons water through the feed tube and pulse a few times till mixture begins to clump together. Add more water if necessary, so dough holds together. The dough is ready when it holds its shape when you squeeze it between your fingers. Now gather dough into a ball and press into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll dough on lightly floured surface and fit into a 9-inch pie pan. Press a piece of buttered tin foil into the crust, fill it with pie weights, and pre-bake pastry shell for 15 minutes. Remove foil and check crusts for cracks which can be filled with a little of the left over dough and water. Now prepare the filling.

Ingredients for filling
3 large room temperature eggs
6 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
2/3 cup dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon molasses
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups pecan or walnut halves

Procedure to assemble
Reduce oven temp to 350. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together brown sugar, eggs. Now mix in all the remaining ingredients except for the nuts. Pour filling into crust and top with nuts. Place on a sheet pan and place in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes till firm, puffed, and jiggly. Nice with whipped cream.

Mandel bread (Jewish Biscotti, if you will!)

The Altitude Adjustment Section
Because we are celebrating our Moms today, I thought it only fitting I give you one of Bernice’s recipe for a Jewish classic — Mandel bread. Great to serve on Poker and Mah Jong night at the coffee break. Bernice used to put out quite the spread, including a few cakes from the famous — now defunct — Ebbinger’s Bakery of Brooklyn. Maybe a Blackout Cake, and a Babka, some sliced Halvah, and of course a Hawaiian pineapple sliced in the skin with Maraschino cherries and spear skewers. Ah, those were the days!

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups A.P. flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

Procedure
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine sugar and oil and mix well. Add eggs one at a time. Add extracts. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Add to liquids. Stir in chopped walnuts and raisins. Take 1/4 of the batter and put into a separate bowl. Stir in cocoa powder. Grease and flour a metal ice cube tray (you can also use a loaf pan) and pour in batter. There will not be much batter, they are small. Add 6 dabs of cocoa batter in top and with a fork swirl it through the batter to look marbleized. Bake in a 350 oven for 25-30 minutes. Let cool and remove from pan. Slice into 1/2 inch slices, and place flat on a sheet pan. Turn oven up to 375 and bake slices 5 minutes on one side then flip over and bake 5 minutes on other side, or until they look toasted. Let cool and eat all of them! Of course you can dip them in chocolate!

Magic Bars — the ultimate junk food!

The Altitude Adjustment Section
Because I can’t have any sweets — and because I just had a flashback to our last baker at work who considered this "fancy baking" — I thought I would live vicariously through our listeners and make one of the junkiest and best-tasting treats in town. A great project for the kids, especially if your husband is a dentist.

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3 1/2 ounces coconut flakes
1 cup chopped walnuts

Procedure
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 if you're using a glass pan). In 13x9-inch baking pan, melt butter in oven. Sprinkle crumbs over butter. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumbs. Top evenly with remaining ingredients; press down firmly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool thoroughly before cutting. Store loosely covered at room temperature... yeah, like there will be any leftovers! Makes 24 bars.

Hammentachen

The Altitude Adjustment Section
I know there is a story about Purim and Hammen and his hat and thus the hammentachen cookies you eat at Purim, but that is the extent of my Jewish background. All you need to know is this recipe was handed down to me from Aunt Ceil, the best cook in my family who is no longer with us, and who was not terribly willing to share her recipes with me. But once she tasted my carrot cake and asked for my recipe so I said okay if you give me your Hammentachen recipe. She gave it to me but left out the sugar amount. An oversight...? I don’t think so, and she never told me the mixing procedure but I think I got it. By the way, she later said: ”You know that carrot cake, I make it better than you!” Of course she did. Now this is a filled cookie and you can use prune butter (lekvar) which I modify, poppyseed filling (mun), or apricot butter or jam.

Ingredients for filling
1 jar Lekvar (prune butter)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Procedure
Just combine and set aside!

Ingredients for dough
1 cup Crisco, chilled
1 cup sugar
Juice and rind of 1 lemon
3 eggs
3 to 4 cups A.P. flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Procedure
Put 3 cups flour, sugar, salt and powder in a bowl. Add Crisco, and blend with your fingertips till mixture resembles small crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, lemon juice and zest. Add to flour mixture and mix with your hands. If mixture is soft and sticky, add the remaining 1 cup of flour. Bring dough together and wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight. The next day, form ping pong-size balls of dough and pinch them out till they are 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter. Place on floured board. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center and fold up three sides to form a triangle. Pinch edges closed leaving some of the filling exposed in the center. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, till golden brown. All these filling can be bought at gourmet stores, or Zabars if you are in the neighborhood! This recipe makes 3 dozen big cookies.

Classic Rugulach

The Altitude Adjustment Section
This week I have a recipe from Susan Purdy’s high altitude book Pie in the Sky to share with you. It's for a classic Jewish cookie called Rugulach. Bet you can't eat just one!

Ingredients for basic pastry
8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, room temp
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for nut filling
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Procedure
In the large bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese and butter till very smooth. Add the flour and salt and just blend till combined. Over mixing will make the dough tough. Turn the dough onto a piece of lightly floured plastic wrap and pat into a flat disk. Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight. While dough is chilling make filling. Just mix stuff together in bowl and set aside.

When you are ready to assemble cookies take out dough, divide in quarters and keep other parts in frig till ready to use. On a lightly floured surface roll dough into a 9 inch circle 1/8 inch thick. Us a pizza cutter dipped in flour to cut dough wedges into16ths. Brush dough with egg wash made with 1 whole egg and 1 tablespoon water beaten with a fork . Now sprinkle with nut topping and roll up from fat to thin end forming a crescent shape. Brush outside with more glaze and sprinkle more nut topping on the outside. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet in a preheated 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes in the bottom 1/3rd of the oven. They hold well in an air tight container but who doesn't!