Happiness is under 30 minutes: Scones

Karen Odden - every other Thursday 

When I was growing up, my mother did not like to cook. It was a different era; more food came out of cans (anyone remember La Choy Chow Mein, with the dry noodles in the separate can on top?); and the term “farm to table” did not exist, at least not in the Rochester suburb where I grew up. 

As an adult, I learned to cook for my kids – workmanlike, weekday meals such as chicken parmesan, stir-fry, and risotto – with recipes, and with guidance from my husband, who grew up in a family that Cooked with a capital C. (That capital C should be in a font twice that size, italicized, and in bold. Just saying.) Thanksgiving was a three-day cooking extravaganza complete with hand-torn loaves of stale bread for stuffing and an enormous turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, succotash, homemade cranberry relish (two kinds), and five kinds of pie. His mother filled an entire wall with pots and pans, each particular to a use, on a cork-board along the staircase down to the basement, in addition to the cookware in the kitchen cupboards. My husband still does all the holiday cooking – it’s he who makes French onion soup from scratch and the Beef Wellington in phyllo dough for Thanksgiving every year. (Guests welcome!) 

But my special, small niche in the kitchen is baking. I have a killer triple-decker carrot cake recipe, with lemon cream cheese frosting, that people sometimes ask for, very specifically, when I say, “What can I bring?” to a dinner party. (As in, it may be why I’m invited.) I have a popular lemon tart, with the zing of lemon zest and a shortbread crust. And I make Craisin and white-chocolate scones, light and moist and perfect for breakfast or dessert, that have never failed to please. Bookstore owner and mystery maven Barbara Peters now calls them "the official Poisoned Pen scones," after I repeatedly brought them to my book launches. 

(For those who don't know, the Pen is an indie bookstore in Old Town Scottsdale that specializes in mystery and holds many author events both in person and virtually, so anyone can watch. November guests include Charles Finch, Tasha Alexander, Janet Evanovich, T. Jefferson Parker, and Julia Spencer-Fleming. https://poisonedpen.com/. )

Baking is like writing, somewhat. 

You gather an array of ingredients (characters), and you combine them in a particular order, give or take (meet, fall in love, become enemies). Blend the wet first, then add the dry. Knead, but don’t work the dough too much. Add spices, flavoring to taste (strew clues throughout). It requires perfect attention to the rules with some things (have an inciting incident, spellcheck) but leeway with others (the crime can happen earlier or later). For example, I am scrupulous about my flour measurements (spoon it into the measuring cup; never, ever just dip the cup measure into the flour, or you will use too much) but I always put in more white chocolate chips than the recipe calls for because I like them a bit sweet and the dough has very little sugar. I rough chop the Craisins, which the original recipe doesn’t call for, because then you get that bit of tartness in every bite. (Note -- when I was in Scotland, I discovered there is a Major Controversy about scone shape. They like them in clumpy rounds; mine are pie shaped. They might not even count as scones in the UK. Furthermore, I have also been instructed on the pronunciation of the word: my friend Wendy H. Jones, in Scotland, pronounces it more like "scawns" than "scones.") 

 

After writing all day, I long to work with my hands, engage my senses of taste and smell, and spend time without a screen. So baking is a pleasure. 

For anyone who wants it, this is the scone recipe, adapted from one that friends Evan and Tami gave me, as I’ve amended over the years. They're easy and sure to please.

Happiness is under 30 minutes.  

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c flour, plus some for dusting the surface when kneading 

¼ c sugar 

2 ½ tsp baking powder 

½ tsp salt 

5 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces 

1 large egg, beaten 

1 tsp vanilla 

6 Tbsp half-and-half 

¾ c Craisins (chopped/halved) 

¾ c white chocolate chips (I use Nestle; some other brands are larger and don’t combine as well unless you halve them) 

Instructions: 

Mix the first five ingredients together by hand or mixer until they are fully blended into crumbs. Then add the rest, blending until just incorporated. Turn the mixture onto a floured surface and knead for two minutes, adding flour in as needed until it isn’t sticky. Cut the dough and form into two rounds. Cut the rounds along the diameter 4 times (think spokes on a bicycle wheel) to make 8 pieces each; they will be pie shaped. Bake on a flat pan, lined with parchment paper, in a 400-degree oven (or 375 convection), 7-8 minutes. (Every oven is different, and these are like pine nuts, you have to catch them at the right minute.) 

Do not let them brown (they turn sort of taupe), or they will taste burnt. They will puff up a bit and should be lightly golden along the edges. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.

Popiah Lessons

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

We had popiah for lunch at Coronation Plaza; the first time in a long time for both Coronation Plaza and popiah.

Coronation Plaza used to be a regular haunt when I was growing up. Like Katong Shopping Centre or Beauty World, Coronation Shopping Plaza was built during the “boom” that Singapore enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s as we emerged as a "newly industrialised society". 

They seemed so new and exciting back then, but feel like ageing suburban malls now. Like I'm an ageing suburban "aunty" to the store keepers who in the old days eyed askance our school uniforms (it was a stop off point between school and swimming practice).  

Anyway, the popiah stall we went to has been in the same corner of the Coronation Shopping Plaza since 1988. Mr Leong, who runs it, is a nephew of the famous (in Singapore at least) late Peranakan author Leong Yee Soo.

And the popiah was great, but what struck me is that my late mother had a copy of that cookbook and I suspect the popiah she used to make for special occasions came out of there. She didn't like to cook. But she produced popiah that more than satisfied most special occasions.

The best thing about popiah is, once you've got the ingredients prepared, the serving is a DIY business.

First you take your popiah skin,

'Poh piah' means thin flatbread, and the perfect popiah skin is very thin, elastic, and chewy. 

It's made by rubbing lumps of viscous, wet wheat flour dough in rounds against a very hot steel plate. The thin layer of dough that sticks and starts to cook is peeled off while still white and untoasted.

Fortunately most popiah skins are bought and kept moist under a damp cloth till needed!

Then come the sauces and seasonings:

There's usually sweet bean sauce, soy sauce, shrimp paste, chilli and garlic sauce and chopped spring onion and it's up to you to adjust the heat levels. 

After that, everything on the table can be piled on as you like. There's always crushed roasted peanuts, lettuce and bean sprouts, and fried tau kua (bean curd) and omelette cut into strips, and often chinese sausage, roasted Pork belly minced into small little cubes as well as shrimp and crab meat.

So if you are vegan (as long as you've pre-warned the cook not to use meat stock in the braise) you can eat alongside everyone else.

The main hot filling is stewed bangkuang or Chinese turnip and carrots. This is usually the only hot part of the meal. Since popiah was traditionally eaten after visiting the ancestral graves during the QingMing Festival, all the side dishes were prepared early and left cold, with only the bangkuang kept on the kitchen coals.

That's what goes on last:

When my mother and aunts made popiah, they would reminisce how, during the war years, they would have popiah with only vegetables. Thanks to the jungle 'garden' there were always beansprouts, kangkong and green papaya, which made them among the lucky ones. 

They talked about how, back in the war years, they would pretend they were rolling up pork and eggs and shrimp into their popiah skins--all the rich foods they stuffed us with years later, to try to make up for the hunger their childhood selves had gone through.

To roll up your popiah, you tuck in the short ends first, to keep the filling in place. Then fold over the top flap and roll it over the centre, keep on rolling till you have a smooth tube. 

Then either cut it into rings to be eaten with chopsticks or eat them whole like we did, with your fingers.

But as a result of their stories, when we well fed, pampered children ate our popiahs, we liked to fold them with just bean sprouts and Chinese turnip and pretend we were trying to survive the war.

Maybe it's the pretending that we're all looking for. Or the novelty of other lives and possibilities. Because who can tell what delectable mysteries (or over spiced disasters) you've wrapped inside the discreet skin of your popiah? Or in the skin of a day or just of the next hour?

Since no one knows but you, you can roll up whatever you like in there. And I’m only now coming to realize that what I choose to wrap in the thin elastic skins of these precious moments doesn’t have to be limited by what's put on the table in front of me.

Get Your Roasted Nuts Here!

 Sujata Massey

Throughout December, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and pecans are always in my shopping cart. I first wrote about this peculiar passion three years ago, yet I couldn’t resist returning to the topic this year.  And the nuts made me contemplate whether traditions can shift a bit and still feel comforting. 

 

This year, not as many Christmas markets are running in Germany as before Covid. For many centuries, Germany and other German-speaking countries have held Christmas markets in town squares that are filled with wooden stalls and sparkling lights, mulled wine and celebrating people.Weihnachtsmarkts sell holiday greens, ornaments, gingerbread, and a variety of roasted nuts--straight-up smoky smelling roasted chestnuts, as well as sugared, cinnamon almonds--either way, the nuts come wrapped in twists of newspaper. I remember going mad for the almonds and lead Christmas tree ornaments at the Recklinghausen Weihnachtsmarkt during a late 1980s holiday visit to Germany with my mother and sisters. 

 

The other nutty tradition that gets me reminiscing isn’t tied to any holidays. Roasted nuts--especially peanuts--are part of the everyday street food scene in India. Walking through Mumbai, I’ve often passed vendors shaking peanuts in a giant steel bowl set over an open fire. What aromas! And just like the practical Germans so far away, these vendors shake the nuts into newspaper cones and hand them over.

 

Despite my overseas romances with various forms of roasted nuts, I only began roasting nuts at home in the early 1990s.I was inspired by a set of recipes for home-made spiced nuts by Julie Sahni. Such nut seemed less perishable and safer to mail to my relatives than cookies—though I’m not going to lie, I make a lot of cookies in December, too. But nuts are the best: not only can you eat them out of hand, but you can add them to salads, cakes, ice cream, oatmeal, and pancakes. Add some chopped dried fruit and you have a trail mix extraordinaire. My family has come to expect these nuts to arrive every year. And it seems symbolic that our bicultural identity comes together in these nuts, which marry the sweet of Germany with the spicy heat of India.

 

As time marches on, many of us are reducing our sugar intake. Last year, I adjusted the venerable spicy nuts recipe with coconut sugar instead of ordinary white sugar. The coconut sugar didn't make as nice a syrup with water as refined white sugar did. It was eerie, but the healthified nuts still tasted very sweet. My own threshold for enjoying sweetness had lowered.

This year, I decided to make extra batches of nuts using a few different sweeteners and to bake them in a regular oven. Because I couldn’t locate a recipe for such that called on Indian spices,   I realized this was a chance to make my own recipe. I counseled myself to be prepared for imperfect results, knowing that food professionals often test upwards of a dozen times before a winner is found.  

The seasonings

 

Driving the mission was a change in sweetening from dry sugar mixed with water to an already usable syrup. The sweetener I was most hopeful about was date syrup, originally known as dibis in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Typical uses for dibis are drizzled over hummus, mixed into drinks, and within desserts. I would never have known about it if I hadn’t kept coming across it in healthy baking recipes this past year. 

One tablespoon of date syrup has a glycemic index of 47. Putting it in context with other options, maple syrup and coconut sugar have a glycemic index of 54, honey has 58, and sugar 60. (Agave syrup is very low—just 19 on the glycemic index—but I think it tastes weird). According to nutritionists, dates are loaded with amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants. because of the protein within nuts, my holiday guilty pleasure could turn into a life-saving holiday hero.

Step into my kitchen. Here's what happened.

20 minutes was too long for half these nuts!

The first batch I made was three cups of nuts tossed with my usual spices and one-third cup of date syrup. I quickly found that date syrup tended to caramelize faster than expected—resulted in blackened nuts that weren’t very pretty and tasted slightly burned. I also noted (belatedly) that whole almonds are double the size of the walnut and pecan halves, so a shorter cooking time for walnuts and pecans would further protect the nuts. 

 

For Attempt Number Two, I cut the oven time from twenty minutes to twelve minutes. I also did the extra step of splitting up the nuts on two baking sheets, with the fat almonds on one sheet, and the skinny walnuts and pecans on the other. That way, it was easier to take the faster baking nuts out when they were crying for mercy, and let the almonds linger a few more minutes.  

Walnuts and pecans and pistachios done right

 

So far, so good.

 

I found myself curious about the road still not taken—another syrup that was a candidate for sweetening.What would the nuts taste like roasted with maple syrup? Would this lighter, higher glycemic index syrup be even better? 

 

For Attempt Number Three, I took the one-third measuring cup I’d used for previous recipes. I filled half of it with date syrup from my waning bottle and then poured maple syrup to the top. After roasting, the nuts were soft and didn’t taste like much. Impatiently, I waited for them to cool to crispness before tasting. 

 

Maple-Date nut mix

Hmmm. The odd thing was that although the maple-date laced nuts were lighter in color and dried to a nice crispness, the taste wasn’t as deep and hauntingly flavorful. There was an umami in the date syrup and a nicely chewy caramelization that was no longer there. And being able to taste between the various batches made me decide that date syrup alone was the best. The ultimate nuts that I'm sharing with you. Recipe is also in print below.

Voila!

Spicy Christmas Nuts

Makes 3 and 1/3 cups

 

Ingredients:

1 cup unroasted, unsalted unblanched whole almonds (often sold as ‘natural’ in the grocery store)

1 cup unroasted, unsalted walnut halves

1 cup unroasted, unsalted pecan halves

1/3 cup unroasted, unsalted pistachios

 

¾ teaspoon roughly ground or pounded fennel seeds

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon amchoor spice, available at Asian grocery stores ( you can substitute 2 teaspoons lemon juice at end of recipe, if you can’t get amchoor)

½ to 2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper (I use 1 teaspoon)

1-2 teaspoons fine salt, divided (I use Maldon Sea Salt that I pound fine. but pound it fine)

 

1/3 cup date syrup

2 tablespoons olive oil.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

1.     Line two rimmed baking sheets with ungreased parchment paper.

2.     Put all the almonds in one bowl.

3.     Put the walnuts halves, pecan halves and pistachios in a second bowl.

4.     Stir all the spices (including 1 teaspoon of the salt) together in a cup and set aside. Be prepared to divide this mix later between two bowls of nuts.

5.     Mix the date syrup and olive oil in another cup. Be prepared to split it between two bowls of nuts.

6.     Cover the nuts in each bowl firstly with the syrup-oil mixture, and secondly with the spices. Don’t be afraid to use your clean hands!

7.     Put the sticky spiced almonds on one baking sheet, and the rest of the nuts on the other sheet. Wash your hands!

8.     Set a timer for 5 minutes and put both baking sheets in the oven. When your timer rings, use a spatula to stir around the nuts on each baking sheet and rotate the sheets back to front, and higher rack to bottom rack. This promotes even cooking. 

9.     Set timer once again for 5 more minutes. When the timer rings, take out the walnuts, pecans and pistachios and set them on their parchment lined pan on a kitchen counter or table. If you are using lemon juice INSTEAD of amchoor, now is the time to toss the nuts with the lemon juice, remembering that you’ll divide the two tablespoons of lemon juice between both sheets of nuts. Taste to see if you want to add any more of the reserved salt.

10.  Allow the almonds to roast two to three more minutes longer than the walnuts-pecans-pistachios--or until many of the nuts show some signs of caramelization. Then you should remove the baking sheet to cool on the counter.

11.  The nuts will probably be cool enough to handle and taste in fifteen minutes. Let them cool to room temperature before packing in tins or git bags. They’ll stay fresh in their wrappings for up to a month, and they can be frozen as well. Eat out of hand and also use as a topping for cereal, oatmeal, cake, ice cream, pancakes, and any other place you think they will spark joy.

 

Which special traditions do you enjoy that you would never change? And what have you tweaked for the better? 

Indian Chutney for an American Summer

Sujata Massey

In the height of summer, a heap of imperfectly gorgeous tomatoes rest on my kitchen island. They beseech me to touch them and make something great. The obvious thing would be to make a lush sauce—but it’s 90 degrees outside, and I’m not in the mood for cozy Italian pasta.

No. These tomatoes are calling out their wish to become a chutney.

“Chatni” is a classic accompaniment to a South Asian meal containing rice, meat and vegetable dishes, and breads. In a typical chatni, fruits and vegetables such as tomato or mango are slow-cooked with spices and ginger, various forms of chilies and the solid brown sugar called jaggery. Jaggery comes from palm sap or sugar cane and is sold in Asian grocery stores. Sometimes garlic and onion are part of the mix. Before the British, mustard and other oils were used to help keep the chutneys from spoiling. The ingredient of vinegar in chutneys comes from Britain, but is now part of some Indian chutney recipes.


Yogurt-based sauces also are known as chutneys; most famously the coriander-mint chutney served at almost every Indian restaurant, and the creamy, sweet and spicy coconut chutney essential to South Indian dosa.

When the British tasted chatni, they loved it. They anglicized the spelling to ‘chutney’ and found ways, after they went back to Britain, to make new chutneys with fruits like apples, plums and rhubarb and the preservative vinegar. A few months ago, I had a great experience making rhubarb chutney. They also created “Major Grey’s Mango Chutney,” a style of sweet and sticky chutney containing raisins, vinegar and a bit of tamarind that is an ingredient in many an American chicken salad. In my family, it is the standard slather over a cheddar cheese sandwich--or grilled cheese.

Sweet mango chutney is the starter chutney for children who are cautious about foreign tastes. Growing up, I had a big spoonful of sweet mango chutney with almost every home cooked Indian meal. I can’t imagine eating biryani without some mango chutney mixed in. These days, Indian food companies such as Patak’s make these Anglo-style mango chutneys with chilies included, if you like.

Back to the homemade tomato chutney. My recipe is inspired by a traditional one found in The Calcutta-Cookbook, A Treasury of Recipes from Pavement to Palace by Minakshie “Kewpie” Das Gupta, Bunny Gupta and Jaya Chaliha. Kewpie was a legendary Bengali home cook and cookbook writer. After Kewpie's passing, her family opened a jewelbox of a café in her honor within their historic home at 2 Elgin Road. Kewpie's is a must for lunch, if you are visiting South Kolkata. And the cookbook details how to make "Colonel's Sweet and Hot Mango Chutney," which is surely more delicious than the commercial version. 

Kewpie's placemats have charming vintage-inspired drawings of Calcutta life

During my frequent lunches at Kewpie’s in the late 1990s, I enjoyed food served on banana leaves and old-fashioned terra cotta plates. There would always be several extraordinary fresh chutneys served. Not to mention spicy pickles--but vegetable pickle is a story for another column!

My tomato chutney, which does not include raisins or too much chili firepower, is great on sandwiches, burgers, alongside grilled meat and fish. You can mix in 1/3 cup of it with eggplant that’s been roasted and mashed. You wind up with something very much like the famous dish Baigan Bharta, but with 75% less work.

Chutney's jammy consistency, when it's ready

The farmer’s market sells larger bunches of herbs than can be eaten in a week—so again, the answer is chutney. I make my cilantro-mint chutney with Greek yogurt for extra protein. It’s a natural with crispy treats like samosas, pakoras or with grilled fish. This green chutney is a great marinade for chicken pieces to be baked or grilled.

Here are my tomato, cilantro-mint and rhubarb chutney recipes. Please note that these chutneys are designed to be refrigerated in glass jars or bowls with lids. They are not shelf-stable.

I'm winding up my culinary adventures to return to my real work: writing a novel. It strikes me, though, that concocting a chutney is a bit like writing a mystery. There are so many interchangeable small parts: fruits and vegetables, spices, and preserving vinegars or oils. When I write, I pull together many pieces: characters, plots and sub-plots, settings, conflicts, motivations. I contemplate when I've got too much of one thing or am missing an important element. My book's components are adjusted as it grows toward a finished state.

But while it takes a year for me to write a book, a chutney rarely simmers more than thirty minutes.  This makes it a small but gratifying accomplishment.