by Lois Ellen Frank. This informative book tells of food traditions that continue today, the seasonality of the food, and the sustainable ways in which food has always been hunted and gathered by Native peoples. The recipes range from very traditional ones such as piki bread, which a young woman must master before being considered a suitable bride, to the more modern pumpkin corn soup with ginger-lime cream and blue corn gnocchi with guajillo chile sauce. The 100 plus dishes in the book have all been adapted to current tastes and modern kitchen equipment. There's an entire chapter devoted to chiles which I'll be turning to frequently. It includes fresh green chile soup with tumbleweed greens, chile turnovers, and red and green chile sauces. With chiles in mind, I had to try the marinated grilled quail which was served with a dried chile and honey glaze.I really like quail and usually order it when it's featured on a restaurant menu, but for whatever reason, I had never before cooked quail at home. We always have fresh, local quail ready and waiting at Whole Foods, and I finally bought some. The quail were washed, patted dry, and their tiny, little wings were removed. The wings went into the freezer for stock some other day. Then, the quail were marinated in a mixture of chopped sage, parsley, rosemary, chipotle chile powder, chopped fresh serrano chile, olive oil, minced garlic, lemon zest, and salt and pepper. They sat in the marinade in the refrigerator for several hours. Then, the glaze was made from rehydrated, dried New Mexico chiles, and I added a dried cascabel just because I had it. The softened chiles were pureed in the blender with some of their soaking water and honey, and then the puree was passed through a sieve. The quail were cooked on the grill for about five minutes per side, and then I spooned some of the glaze over them and let them grill for another minute per side. I sauteed CSA zucchini, corn, and green beans for a side dish, and the quail were served split in half with more glaze drizzled over top. 
This might sound like a curious mix of things to call a pizza, but stick with me because this was exciting. Back when I first talked about the book Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition
, I said something about how it wouldn’t be long before I tried the brioche pizza. Well, it was only a couple of months, and the brioche pizza is but one part of the story. This is also about how I finally made homemade ricotta. You see, one of the ingredients for the pizza is fresh ricotta, and there’s a recipe for that in the book too. I had been saying for months that I wanted to try making ricotta and quark and mascarpone, but I kept avoiding those projects. Everyone told me how easy it is to make ricotta and asked why I’d never done it. Deeba at Passionate About Baking inspires me by making several fresh cheeses including ricotta, and the Cosmic Cowgirl has instructions for three different ways of making it on her site. And so, at last, it was time, and if I was going to do this, I was going to do this right. I headed out to a farmers’ market on a chilly first day of spring morning and purchased a gallon of incredibly fresh, locally produced cow’s milk from Way Back When Dairy. I quickly learned that making ricotta is so easy it’s silly and that really fresh milk makes really delicious ricotta.
That gallon of whole milk, three quarters of a cup of distilled white vinegar, and a tablespoon of salt were placed in a large pan and brought up to 140 degrees F while stirring constantly. Then, it was left to continue warming to 175 degrees F. The separated curds were then spooned into a cheesecloth-lined mesh strainer with a base that was sitting in a large bowl. The strainer needs a base so that it can stand above the liquid that drains. It drained for about an hour, and voila, beautiful ricotta was born. That was the key to this pizza’s toppings. Ricotta with honey and pistachios is a natural fit, and then pushing those flavors a little by contrasting the sweetness with some savory heat was what resulted here. Those toppings just happened to have been on brioche dough.
Don’t call the butter police. I know this will sound like a lot of butter, but that’s brioche. The dough was started by mixing sugar, warm water, and yeast. Flour, additional sugar, and salt were combined, and then eggs and the yeast mixture were added to that in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. While mixing the dough, it was necessary to stop from time to time and pull the dough down off the dough hook and then continue. Then, softened butter was added one tablespoon at a time allowing each bit to be incorporated before adding more until the 16 luscious tablespoons of butter had been added. The dough was briefly kneaded by hand on a floured surface and was left to slowly rise in the refrigerator for at least four hours or up to two days. It was a lovely dough that was actually very easy to roll out for pizzas.
To make these pizzas, pistachios were fried in olive oil and then removed, drained on paper towels, and were coarsely chopped. After the olive cooled a little, red pepper flakes and sliced garlic were added to it. That flavored oil and some of the pepper flakes and garlic were brushed onto the rolled out pizza dough. The oil was topped with chopped pistachios and scoops of fresh ricotta. The pizza baked for about thirteen minutes, and then it was drizzled with honey and sprinkled with fleur de sel. I should explain that this isn’t really the kind of pizza to serve for eating several big slices while watching the game although I’m sure it would taste just as good whether a game was being watched or not. Rather, this is more of a pizza to cut into small pieces to be enjoyed with a cocktail. The rich dough was a very suitable platform for the creamy ricotta, sweet honey, and spicy hit of pepper. I wasn’t sure Kurt would love this, and neither was he. After tasting it, he claimed that the toppings really worked well together, and I couldn’t have agreed more. I also thought it was a great use of my very first fresh ricotta.
If there is one thing my Mom and I most certainly have in common it is our weakness for caramels. When I lived at home and we’d go out running errands or shopping, we always found an excuse to stop by the candy store where we got our praline fix. Caramel with pecans is a match that’s meant to be. So, for Mother’s Day, I decided to make some homemade caramels for Mom, and I turned again to Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. Each time I use this book, I appreciate it more. There’s a preciseness to the flavor combinations and an intentional simplicity which allows certain flavors to come forward. I previously made the fleur de sel caramels which were positively incredible. That recipe is found in the ‘flavors of herbs and spices, flowers and leaves’ section, and it, of course, highlighted the play of salt vs sweet. The caramels I made for Mom, are from the ‘flavors of honey and sugar’ section, and Medrich recommends experimenting with different honeys for this. I could do that on an on-going basis and run out honey varieties before getting tired of the caramels.
I chose a local, Texas wildflower honey for these. The honey was combined with corn syrup, sugar, and salt in a saucepan and cooked until simmering. A candy thermometer was attached to the pan, and the mixture was brought up to 305 degrees F. At the same time, cream was warmed in a small saucepan. Butter was added to the honey mixture off the heat, and then the cream was stirred in as well. It was returned to the stove and brought up to 245 degrees F, and then there was the opportunity to decide how chewy you want your caramels. For soft chewy, you let it go to 248 degrees, and for firmer chewy, it goes to 250. I chose soft, and at 248 and not a degree higher, I turned off the heat, added the vanilla, and poured the bubbly goodness over some pecans in a pan lined with buttered foil. Medrich suggested walnuts, but I used pecans. See above statement regarding caramel and pecans.
I left the pan of caramel to cool overnight, and cut it into pieces the next day. These were much stickier than the sea salt caramels I made before. I’m not sure if that was due to the honey or our off-the-charts humidity. Or, maybe I let the sea salt caramels get to a slightly higher temperature, and they set up to a firmer state. Storing them in the refrigerator also makes them firmer, and some chilling time made them easier to cut. Were they delicious? Let me just say that cutting and wrapping them individually in cellophane was slow going. I ate every other one I cut and then had to pause and rinse my hands so as not to leave sticky fingerprints on the cellophane. I finally wrapped enough of them to fill a box for Mom. The rest are mine, and I’m not sharing.
These honey peanut wafers are also from The Modern Baker, and there are a couple of other cookies in the book I’m planning to bake in the next week too. Since these seemed like they would freeze well, I started with them. The use of honey and the simplicity of the dough drew me in instantly. It’s a very straightforward recipe with no stand mixer required. Honey, sugar, and an egg are whisked together with melted butter, and then flour, baking soda, and chopped nuts are incorporated. In the notes, Nick Malgieri mentions that the idea of using honey roasted peanuts came from Maida Heatter. Can you imagine a conversation about baking between those two? Honey roasted peanuts were perfect here, and chopping them works well for these thin cookies that spread a lot while baking. I used a natural brand called Flavor Tree. They were just sweet enough but not too much so, and they were crunchy without that usual shellacked surface.
Once the cookie dough is stirred together, tablespoon-sized mounds, spaced about four inches apart, are placed on a baking sheet. I fit six cookies on each standard, half-sheet pan. They are a little delicate when transferring to cooling racks and then to a storage container due to their thinness and slightly sticky surface. Parchment paper between layers is necessary for stacking them. But, the flavor? So good. Very possibly a new favorite. The caramelized honey and sugar on the bottoms of the cookies becomes toffee-like. If that weren’t enough, the chopped nuts are crunchy and peanutty while the cookie is much less dense than a peanut butter cookie would be. They’re thin but chewy and nutty and addictive. As soon as they were cool, they went right into the freezer for safekeeping.
