Patience is not one of my particular virtues.
As evidence, I will cite my rather aggressive driving style, the way I get bossy and dictatorial with indecisive friends, the fact that I never make it to someone’s actual birthday before giving them their birthday present, my intolerance of chronic whiners, and the extreme distractedness I feel in the days leading up to a party or concert or other much-anticipated event.
There are two zones of exception for my impatience, my classroom and my kitchen. With my students, it’s easy for me to be patient in a way that I just can’t muster with adults. And when I cook, the patience comes without effort, whether it’s whipping meringue, tempering lemon curd, or caramelizing onions. Something about the process of coaxing a chaotic jumble of raw ingredients into an elegant, composed, good-tasting dish calms me down and makes me feel much more patient than I actually am.
CARAMELIZED ONION TART
(adapted from Food & Wine)
for the dough:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
8 T unsalted butter, cold & cut into pieces
6 T ice cold water
¼ tsp. salt
Combine flour and salt, then use your fingers to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles wet sand. Drizzle the water over the flour mixture and stir until it just comes together. Press the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
for the filling:
2 lb. sweet yellow onions, peeled & thinly sliced
4 T unsalted butter
2 T crème fraîche, sour cream, or plain yogurt
2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves or 1 tsp. dried
salt & pepper
In a wide, heavy-bottomed skillet (I like to use my coated cast-iron), melt the butter. Add the onions and thyme and cook over medium-high heat until nice and soft, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the onions become golden brown, another 20-25 minutes. I find that covering the skillet for the first half of the 20 minutes, then leaving uncovered and stirring more frequently during the second half works well.
Once the onions are caramelized, remove from the heat and stir in the crème fraîche, sour cream, or plain yogurt, plus salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat the oven to 375˚. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll the dough out into a large circle (about 12” in diameter). Spread the onion filling all around the dough, leaving a generous border (about 2”). Fold the edges of the dough up and over the filling. Brush the edges with egg wash (optional):
for the egg wash:
1 egg beaten with 1 T milk
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the crust is nice and browned. Cool for a bit on a rack before slicing the tart into wedges and serving warm. Goes very well with a green salad for a simple dinner.
MOLASSES COOKIES
I love fall. Hands down, it’s my favorite season: long sleeves, bite in the air, crisp mornings, leaves collecting on the sidewalk, football, apples, Halloween, nutmeg and hard squash and soups and chili—there’s just something so romantic about it all.
The round, warm flavor of molasses and the full complement of spices that fill these cookies are perfect for fall, chewy and caramel-y and perfect with a glass of milk. I came across this recipe in a quest to replicate the molasses cookies they used to serve at Starbucks (do they still?) at autumntime—they are a favorite of my dear friend, and I figured I could come up with a homemade version.
These are adapted from an NPR story, with the spice quotient bumped up to reflect my personal tastes.
Plan ahead to make sure you’ll have adequate chilling time for the dough, which you can leave overnight if need be. Also be sure to watch the cookies carefully in the oven—they’ll still seem mushy to you when you take them out, but will firm up when cooling, leaving a perfectly chewy cookie behind. They won’t last long, I guar-an-tee.
ingredients:
3/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup molasses (grease your measuring cup with baking spray before pouring, it will save you clean-up trouble!)
1 egg
1 cup sugar, plus extra for dipping
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. salt
Combine the melted butter, sugar, molasses and egg in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly before sifting the dry ingredients into the same bowl and mixing again. Chill dough at least two hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375°.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls, then roll them sugar. Place them on a greased cookie sheet VERY FAR APART—they will spread a lot!
Flatten each one with a fork, making a cross-hatch pattern to encourage the cookies (can cookies be encouraged?) to promote even spreading.
Bake for 8-10 minutes until flat and dark brown. Cool on racks, as the cookies will be very delicate until they’ve cooled a bit. These will keep for at least a week in an airtight container (if they last that long!)
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NISHTA MEHRA is an English teacher, a lover of words, with a heart for great food. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee as the first-generation daughter of Indian immigrants, she is equal parts Southern belle & good Punjabi girl. Her amazing recipes can be found at BlueJeanGourmet.com, where she blogs about food and all about life. In 2010, the Houston Press called her one of Houston’s Top Ten Blog Stars, and in 2011, the Houston Web Awards named Blue Jean Gourmet the city’s Best Food Blog. She is also the founder & director of Valentines for Soldiers-Houston, an annual community and fundraising event benefitting members of the U.S. Military.
Join her at BlueJeanGourmet, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter @BlueJeanGourmet, and Pinterest.
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