Text 24951, 130 rader
Skriven 2015-03-16 12:18:58 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38.0)
  Kommentar till text 24913 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: flights of fancy 358
============================
Hi Michael,

>> Yes, indeed.  When we lived in Warwick, NY, the village was so close
>> to NYC (maybe 45 minutes or less), the fresh fish at the seafood store
>> was great. I miss that kind of thing.

> Mr. Wegman is your friend. I know it's not quite the same
> thing, but we've come a long way since Chicagoans used to
> eat seafood that had been shipped by train in barrels of ice.

Indeed... for most things Wegmans is great in that area.  My irritation with
them usually comes around the holidays, most recently this Christmas eve.  Not
their fault I suppose, but the selection of squid for calamari was only of the
overly large, cleaned variety, with no tentacles.  It's not that I love
cleaning squid, but I do like finding the ink sacs and including them in the
sauce.. and with no tentacles, you lose some flavor in the stuffing IMO.  I
guess they were "cleaned out" that day, but didn't they realize I still had to
do my Christmas eve dinner shopping?? (vbg)  Ok, if I'd been thinking that
week, I would have called them and reserved 3-4lbs of tubes and tentacles in
advance :)

>>> I enjoy eating eggplant parmesan, but it's one of those tiresome
>>> things to make.
>> It's not that difficult, just takes a while and a lot of
>> steps. I like doing it.
>> No, it's not difficult.  It takes a bit of energy, that's all.
>> Sometimes it doesn't bother me at all to do it... Other times I look at
>> the pile of sliced eggplant and sigh.. oh well (grin).

> Hear ya.

Heh.. for me it's nothing a 'power-pellet' (one of my meds) and a few aspirin
can't take care of.  I just have to remember to eat something first so I don't
get an upset stomach.  Then of course I'm speeding my butt off and looking to
burn off all that energy. Bring on the eggplant, or whatever :)

>> Fried bread dough is good.. you remember I made up a slab of bread
>> dough for "pizza fritta" at one of the picnics, I fried a bunch, then
>> turned over the frying to you.  I stretched the slice of dough, you

> That was the first picnic you hosted, as I recall.
> Fun. I started making them like the zeppole from the
> North End, and then you showed me the way you were
> taught.

Yes, that was the picnic... The dough I made for pizza fritta is simply bread
dough, stretched and fried in olive oil, sometimes sprinkled with
confectioner's sugar, or regular sugar... typically a treat on holidays for
Breakfast.  The Zippole you mention, at least as we knew them, we generally
bought from Italian pastry shops.  The pastry could be baked or fried, and the
pastry was then topped with pastry cream and a cherry, with a sprinkling of
confectioner's sugar over the pastry.  They were not round, but kind of well,
clam shaped :)

> A different kind of pie -

> Julia Child's Eggplant Pizzas

Leave it to Julia to do her own thing, and usually with good results... one of
my favorite recipes from her cook books was her variation on lasagne made with
bechamel instead of Ricotta, another was her version of Risotto Garni (a kind
of non-fried, fried rice), both of which I still make here now and again and
neither of which bears much resemblence to their simialarly named recipes :)

==Zeppole di San Giuseppe==
These were often purchased at Italian pastry shops.

Ingredients:

Pastry: (fritters)
    1 cup water
    5 oz all-purpose flour
    3 eggs
    1 oz butter
     pinch salt

Pastry cream:
    2 egg yolks
    2 oz sugar
    1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
    1 cup milk
    lemon zest

extra virgin olive oil to taste
frying oil to taste (I use olive oil) confectioners sugar to taste
sour cherry in syrup

Pastry dough directions:
Pour water into a saucepan and add the salt and butter. Bring to a boil, while
stirring. Add the flour, leaving the pan on the heat, and mix the batter well
using a spoon until the batter is smooth and no longer sticks to the sides of
the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and transfer the batter to a bowl to
cool. Once the batter reaches room temperature, add the eggs, one at a time and
mix together. Once the batter is fairly light and airy, place the dough in the
refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.

Pastry cream directions:
Put the milk into a  saucepan.  Add the lemon peel and bring to a boil. Beat
the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar. Add the flour, whisking continuously.
Once the milk begins to boil, remove it from the heat and slowly add the egg,
sugar and flour mixture, whisking as you go. The resulting mixture should be
soft and creamy. Then transfer the mixture to the stove over medium heat. Stir
continuously until the cream becomes fairly dense. Transfer the cream to a bowl
and cover with plastic wrap while it cools. Be sure to cover the bowl well so
that a film doesn't form on the surface of the cream. While you wait for the
cream to cool, prepare the pastries (fritters).

To shape the pastry dough, place the pastry dough batter in a pastry bag with a
star-shaped tip. Cut out 2-in squares of aluminum foil and grease one side of
the squares with extra virgin olive oil. Using the pastry bag, form a ring of
dough on each foil until you have used all the batter. Fill a pot with frying
oil and place over high heat.

When the oil is hot, place the fritters in the oil, two at a time, with the
foil. Do not cook more than two at a time or else the oil will not stay hot.
The foil will separate from the fritters in the hot oil.

When brown, remove the fritters using a slotted spoon and place them to drain
on paper towels while you fry the remaining batter. Once the fritters are cool
enough to handle, fill another pastry bag with the pastry cream.

Place a dollop of pastry cream on each fritter, top each one with a cherry.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
===

Take care,
Janis

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