The Joy of Bread Pudding

Last night we celebrated my friend Kathi's birthday with dinner out for six. It wasn't Kathi's birthday quite yet (that happens Tuesday) but she is well known for planning her birthday events well in advance and in multiples. Last night was our night on her calendar so we made reservations at Pearl Bar and Dining in Bellevue, a new favorite of ours.

We let the chef surprise us with his choices for our dinners. While I could go on about the entrees, this is really about a fun fact and the dessert.

While Matt the sommelier was uncorking our Rombauer chardonnay he told us that the family name, Rombauer, was part of the Joy of Cooking cookbook legacy. Irma Rombauer wrote the original Joy of Cooking in 1936 and it has been continuously in print ever since. I had never made the connection between the wine and the author until Matt told us that the owners of the vineyard were related and he showed us the cork. On it were the words "The Joy of Wine." Clever!

After dinner the chef sent us a special dessert that recently went on the menu. It was a luscious bread pudding, topped with a creamy vanilla sauce and fresh strawberries. We passed it around the table and declared it on par with our other favorite dessert there, the Butterscotch Sundae. Although I think of bread pudding as a decidedly wintertime dessert choice, it was surprisingly light and with the strawberries, was perfect paired with our lovely June weather.

And so for Father's Day, I tried to recreate this dessert for my family using recipes from my copy of the Joy of Cooking. I began with the recipe for Bread Pudding with Meringue omitting the meringue, and adding the recipe for Creme Anglaise, or custard sauce. I had perfectly ripe strawberries from a recent visit to the Farmer's Market. The entire ingredient list? Milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, bread, strawberries and lemon. That's it.

While I had high hopes that serendipity would allow me to use this cookbook and get the result I wanted, it wasn't to be. It was good, but didn't have the the depth that the Pearl dish had. The Creme Anglaise could have been a bit richer (using cream or half-and-half instead of milk perhaps), and the bread pudding in my version was just a simple, lightly sweetened, eggy sponge. If I were to try again, and I will, I might try substituting brown sugar in the bread pudding for a more caramel flavor, or spicing it up some. Perhaps caramelizing the top with sugar (a la creme brulee) would be good. Maybe they used a different pastry or bread (like a really decadent French Toast with lots of vanilla, sugar and butter, mmm) in their bread pudding. I'm not an experienced baker, so my instincts might be way off. Hints are very welcomed!

Bread Pudding with Creme Anglaise and Strawberries

adapted from the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker

Serves 6

Creme Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce)

2 cups whole milk

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, or 1 teaspoon vanilla

5 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1. Heat the milk and vanilla bean over simmering water in a double boiler until hot but not boiling.

2. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and salt together. Add a few tablespoons of the hot milk to the egg yolks to warm them, then add the egg mixture to the milk and whisk together. Place the mixture back over the simmering water.

3. Switch to a wooden spoon and cook the mixture over the simmering water, stirring often, until quite hot but not boiling. It will become the consistency of heavy cream as it cooks. You will know it's done when it coats the back of the spoon and you can drag your finger across and the line stays.

4. Once cooked, pour through a strainer (to catch any overly cooked egg) into a clean bowl. Scrape the vanilla bean with the back of a knife to collect the seeds and stir in to the mix. If you are using vanilla extract instead of a bean, add it now. Allow to cool, then cover and refrigerate.

Simple Bread Pudding

5 cups cubed fresh bread, crusts removed, lightly packed

3 cups whole milk

3 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

The zest and juice from half a lemon

1 and 1/2 pints fresh strawberries, quartered and lightly sweetened with just a teaspoon of sugar, only if necessary

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. Place the cubed bread in a baking dish, pour the milk over and allow to soak for 15 minutes.

2. Whisk the egg yolk, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice together. Pour over the soaked bread and toss lightly with a fork until combined.

3. Place the baking dish into a larger pan, place it in the oven and then fill the larger dish with hot water, coming about halfway up the baking dish. Bake for 50 minutes.

Serve warm, covered with a large spoonful of the sauce and topped with a scoop of the strawberries.

A Chicken Vegetarian

I recently bought a cookbook by Peter Berley titled, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen after reading about it on Amazon.com.  That 1-Click setting on Amazon gets me into more trouble.  I often find myself reading the customer reviews and then clicking around the site when a reviewer mentions another book that he or she also loves.  I end up with a virtual cart full of books I didn't know I wanted and then must curtail my urge to buy them all.  This one made it in and I'm glad it stayed.

I'm not vegetarian or even close to it.  I do however have a number of great vegetarian cookbooks as I like the focus on vegetables and grains and I keep thinking I might become vegetarian someday.  The idea of it is appealing to me.  Not for the animal-rights reasons (although I find myself sympathetic to those causes, my sympathies disappear in front of a fat-streaked, 2-inch chop), but just for the healthy lifestyle aspects of it.   It's like my desire to become an avid weight trainer.  I know it would be great for me, it would help me to get toned and strong, but hard it's hard for me to, well... Just Do It.  I think I want to become a fit, buffed vegetarian someday.  It sounds so cool.  Just not today.  

I'm telling you this to confess the worst sin I could have done when cooking from a masterpiece such as The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen.  This book won the James Beard Foundation book award for vegetarian cooking in 2001.  The author is an expert.  And I substituted chicken for tempeh in a recipe.  There, I said it.  

I've never worked with tempeh.  Berley provides an excellent description of what it is (soybeans and other grains and seeds mixed with certain spores, compressed into cakes and incubated for 18 to 24 hours.  The resulting slabs are held together "by a complex web of white mold."  Um, ew.)  I don't know what tempeh tastes like.  It doesn't sound like it will taste good therefore I'm afraid of it.  I don't know where to buy it and I'm not feeling adventurous enough to try today.  I want to make the recipe, so chicken it is.  Vegetarianism will wait another day.

Other than the aforementioned major substitution, I followed the recipe very closely.  I was intrigued by the addition of caraway seeds as it didn't seem to fit this Asian style dish.  I then remembered that caraway seeds are often used as a digestive aid when eating lots of vegetables, particularly from the cabbage family, to reduce the resulting, shall we say, discomfort?  That's a small example of the genius behind this cookbook.  Although the list of ingredients is somewhat long, they are all familiar (exception already noted) and the techniques are straightforward.  The result?  Fabulous.  It's a bright, slightly spicy, creamy and lemony vegetable (and chicken!) braise served over fragrant jasmine rice.  The sauce is so flavorful that I could have easily ditched the chicken altogether.  And perhaps tempeh would be just fine if someone else cooked it for me and I didn't know.

Chicken and Vegetables Braised in a Spicy Lemon-Coconut Broth

Very liberally adapted from The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen by Peter Berley

serves 4

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 cup thinly sliced onions

1 cup sliced carrot

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon tumeric

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds

1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Finely grated zest from 1 lemon

4 cups sliced green cabbage (sliced 1/2 inch thick)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1.  Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil over medium-high heat in an 8- to 10-inch skillet and saute chicken until browned, about 3 minutes per side.  Don't move the chicken around once you've dropped it in the pan or it won't brown properly.  Remove to a plate.

2.  Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil to the now-hot skillet and saute the onions for about 5 minutes, until softened and the browned bits left in the pan have melted onto the onions.  You may have to reduce the heat so this doesn't go too fast.

3.  Add the carrot, ginger, coriander, tumeric, paprika, sugar, caraway seeds, and red pepper flakes.  Saute, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.

4.  Add the chicken, coconut milk, rice vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice, and lemon zest.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

5.  Place the cabbage on top of the chicken and sprinkle on 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Cover the pan and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, until cabbage is tender.

6.  Uncover, turn the cabbage gently into the sauce and let reduce slightly to thicken and coat the cabbage, about 2 minutes.  Stir in the cilantro.  Taste for seasoning (should be very flavorful as it's served over rice), and serve.