Festive Recipe Exchange?

[Prinz Eugen]

Anyone want to talk about, or share photos or recipes about your favourite traditional foods?
(Any tradition is fine, whether linked with or independent from any religion. Example: sometimes the numbers of objects used or the number of sections into which something is cut or decorated has a religious significance - feel free to share that as a why this is done this way sidelight. )

(You didn't come here to lose weight, right?)

OK - I will go first with French Canadian style baked beans:
You will need a clay beanpot. If you don't have one, borrow if you can:


4 cups of great northern beans (they're actually small & white)
3/4 lb salt pork
2 medium onions, strong* (or use shallots)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1&1/2 cup black-strap molasses, sulfured
3 heaping tablespoons of dried summer savory
2 heaping tablespoons of dijon mustard
1 heaping tablespoon of black pepper

And here we go: You start one or two nights before. Soak the beans in water overnight in the pot in a refrigerator. They will then swell to 'normal' size for baked beans.
The next night, boil the beans in a stew pot for 1 hour at a near-rolling boil. They should end up thoroughly cooked so you can smush them with a fork; if they are still firm then keep boiling. Return to fridge with their water. On the day you want your beans, strain them in a collander and SAVE their water in a temporary container. Cut up the salt-pork into 1cc-sized cubes. Put half of them on the bottom of the clay bean pot, then fill the pot with half the beans. Peel the two onions and sink them in half-way deep into the beans. Add the rest of the salt pork cubes all around the onions, and add the mustard at this level. Cover up with the rest of the beans. Throw the dry spices on top of the beans.

Heat a cup or two of the bean-water in a skillet and add the molasses and brown sugar (or grade D maple syrup for cooking, if you are a lucky enough to know where to get that!) and pour all this over the top of the spices. Add extra bean-water to flood the beans about three-quarters of an inch deep in the pot. Add slowly so you do not disturb the layers - fat floats in water, and those salt-pork chucks will pop to the surface if you're not careful.

Place the bean pot in an oven at 325 for about 5 hours. Check every hour and add bean-water to keep the beans submerged. After the 5th hour remove the cover and raise the oven to 375 to boil off the water down to the level of the beans.

Serves 8 - 14 people depending on what other courses of foods you are having, and whether or not some of your guests still eat like 19th century trappers.

*As the baby boomer generation ages, produce has gotten larger and blander/milder. You can get huge, sweet, mild Walla-Walla or Valencia onions, but it's almost impossible to find a tennis-ball sized onion that will tear your eyes up when you cut it and flavour a whole 2 quarts of stew. So you have to re-tune recipes which contain onions or jalapeño peppers.

[superjaz]

This is a really simle thing to make but at our house holidays are not the same without cream cheese and celery sticks!

Wash a couple stalks of celery and trim the tops and bottoms and then fill with cream cheese important part of our party tray.
I like adding some sliced green or black olives.  During the holidays when I was little we always had a princess house crystal tray (my mom sold it for a little while think tupperware parties only crystal) with some cracker and cheese and deli meats sliced thin from the german butchershop down the street, they were really nice to us and gave us lots of yummy meats durning the holidays their daughter babysat me some times and I remeber the butchers wife Grace giving me cold meds when I was sick.

When other kids would buy a piece of candy I would get a stick of the best beef jerky in the world.

[sandrobotticelli]

Traditional Scottish Shortbread Cookies (Ayrshire Shortbread)

This requires about four ounces of ground rice, flour, butter, and caster sugar*. You set the oven to about 350 degrees  and sift the four and ground rice in a bowl. Then you mix in the butter and the caster sugar. After this, you add a beaten egg yolk, about a tablespoon of whipping cream**, and a drop of vanilla extract to the mixture. Knead the dough to a stiff consistency and roll it out until it's thin. You can cut it into whatever shape you desire and put it on a cookie tray and into the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Passed down by my grandpa when he came over from Scotland. ;]

*Caster sugar is pretty much just finely grained sugar. You can buy what I believe is called "baker's sugar" at stores like Fred Meyer and Safeway in the cooking section, but it's often expensive. I usually just take regular sugar and run it through a spice blender (but make sure to only do it for about 3 to 5 seconds or it'll become powdered sugar.)

**Technically you would need to use double cream to stay true to the traditional recipe, but since that's mainly just found in the UK, whipping cream is a fine substitution, I think.

[Prinz Eugen]

This requires about four ounces of ground rice, flour, butter, and caster sugar*.

This sounds easy and FUN. Now do you take four ounces of EACH of these?
The 'caster' sugar - would 10X sugar (aka confectioner's sugar) work, or would you pulverize regular granulated sugar a little so it's fine but still coarser than 10X?

[RemSaverem]

Do you pour off the water from your beans?
Would a regular crock pot work?
Your recipe, if something for stock were substituted other than pork, would be something I could pass on for folks who are looking for new recipes for cholent.

Cholent is stew that is served in frum (Yiddish) / Haredi (Hebrew) / Orthodox (English) households for Shabat (Sabbath). Basically it's simmered at lowest heat in a crock pot for the entire 25 hours of Shabat by those so observant that they don't flip a switch for the entire timeframe. I am vegetarian, but my friends who are Orthodox (which I am not) eat meat, so if you think that beef would be substitutable, that could work. They're always asking me for help imagining new recipes for Cholent, & I'm never able to give them any with meat in them! So, thanks!

[sandrobotticelli]

This requires about four ounces of ground rice, flour, butter, and caster sugar*.

This sounds easy and FUN. Now do you take four ounces of EACH of these?
The 'caster' sugar - would 10X sugar (aka confectioner's sugar) work, or would you pulverize regular granulated sugar a little so it's fine but still coarser than 10X?

Yes, each requires about four ounces.
Well, I wouldn't go with confectioner's. Worse case scenario you could use regular sugar. I would suggest pulverizing regular sugar if you can :]

[Prinz Eugen]

Do you pour off the water from your beans?

I don't quite understand this question. You save the water you boiled the beans in. It retains a slight cloudiness. You use this to top off during the 5  - 6 hour bake. You usually run out by then and can keep topping off with a little tap water.

Would a regular crock pot work?

I've not tried that and I kind of don't think so - electric crock puts heat mostly from below, but a stoneware beanpot in an oven adds heat to its contents from all directions - that may make the difference. Also the long bake has to be hot enough throughout to melt the fat from the salt pork.
My older sisters went on a health-kick and tried to swap out salt pork for other things - but none could fool the gang from Lake St Jean.

Your recipe, if something for stock were substituted other than pork, would be something I could pass on for folks who are looking for new recipes for cholent.

The closest thing from a cow might be suet cut near the fat brisket. It should be salted as a preservative, and should have strips of heavily marbled muscle fiber running through it. The flavor will be completely different from salt pork, which is a staple source of fat in French Canadian cooking.

You absolutely cannot make a tourtière Kosher, (does keeping kosher also exclude veal?)
but you may be able to make its ancestor: the cipaille, also called 'six-pâtes' ('Six paws.')


You use six farm and game meats in this one, and it is representative of going out hunting and coming back with whatever the ol' blunderbuss brought down: squirrel, rabbit, partridge, beaver, goose, duck, fox, venison, caribou, moose, - or on the domesticated side: veal, pork, chicken, turkey, beef, bison, goat, etc... Also include diced potatoes and onions. Major spices are summer savory, basil, clove, and bay leaf; some variants include white pepper. All this ends up in a pastry-crust lined vessel, usually a deep crock or dutch oven, so it is taller than tourtière:

[RemSaverem]

Thank you for the details. A bean pot sounds like a wise investment for Cholent. Any preferred brand or material or store?

[Prinz Eugen]

Thank you for the details. A bean pot sounds like a wise investment for Cholent. Any preferred brand or material or store?

The only brand names I have heard of are Red Wing and West Bend. I won't say that either brand means better quality than anything else you may find ...

You can find them used at flea markets, and one will serve for decades just fine - even if it's already several decades old & used. No moving parts, etc. The only coating is the glaze from when it was first made, so if you get a used one make sure it is glazed inside (not all are,) and then nail it with bleach and get in there with a coarse steel wool or copper wool pad. You don't know what may have died in there, or if it was stored in an attic for 38 yrs, etc...

Here's a site that may help:
http://www.potshopofboston.com/

[RemSaverem]

Interesting...I am unfamiliar with these containers, but if tjey can find & sanitize one, I think it would be great for Cholent.

[camname21]

How do you define traditional foods?

[jaybug]

How do you define traditional foods?

You keep having it every year. Once. lol

I'm going to make Atomic Fire Ball Cinnamon Rolls Thursday. Here's how I am going to do it.

Ingredients
1 egg
1 stick of butter
1 T. sugar
1 T. yeast
1 T. cooking oil
1 cup water
4 cups flour
"true" cinnamon, not cassia that you buy everywhere. In fact only place I know to buy it is Spice and Tea Exchange downtown Portland. sucks living down here sometimes True cinnamon is hot like Atomic fireballs, not just tastes cinnamony.

Get egg out of fridge an hour or so before I actually start doing this, so it isn't so cold to cool off yeast fermentation. Get out stick of butter so it warms too, and becomes nice and soft. Yes, butter, not margarine. ick

1 cup warm water
1 T. sugar
1 T. yeast

mix in biggest stainless bowl I own, about 2 feet in diameter, or bigger, dunno never measured it.

wait 15 minutes or so for the yeast to begin to ferment the sugar

add
1 T. cooking oil
(I will use one of the following oils, peanut, sesame, or corn)
1 egg

add about 4 cups of sifted flour to the yeasty water
( I'm going to use 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour, and one cup of all purpose flour)

oil my hands, and knead the dough until it becomes really difficult, and all the flour is incorporated, and none left drifting around the bowl. I'll add water or flour, it's better to need to add flour, than it is to add water.

hold dough in one hand while I spray bowl with PAM lightly

place dough in bowl and cover with tea towel for an hour or so, waiting for dough to at least double in volume. I like really loud dough. HA!

After rising, punch out dough. Yes, hit it with your fist. Knead more. I am so kneady, aren't I? And preheat over to 400 degrees F.

sprinkle area where you are going to roll out dough with flour, lightly just enough so dough doesn't stick, not enough to make more dough.

roll dough to about 1/4" thick. Hopefully it came out kind of rectangular.

spread butter on dough

sprinkle sugar on dough

Sprinkle cinnamon on sugar, now do you want fire rolls, or just cinnamony? Make it dark with the cinnamon for fire! Kick it up a notch, I dare ya!

roll into a log

cut into about 2" sections, or 1" sections if you like rolls about 2" high after baking. Me, I try to give Rose's Delicatessen a run for their money.

grease baking pan with butter

sprinkle with sugar and more cinnamon, okay so this is what gives you sticky buns, but to me that's all part of the deal.

Place rolls in pan, and when over ready, place in oven for 20 minutes.

If I you were me, you'd start eating them as soon as they get out of the oven. Maybe with a little leftover butter from before.