Sweet and Savory Palmiers

Last Friday night marked my third and final law prom, and to celebrate the occasion I spent the first half of the day baking. Whereas in high school I considered drinking to be the key factor in having fun at prom, these days I see whipping up some appetizers to be of rather high importance. Well, at least somewhat high importance. We all know that a few glasses of the sauce trump puff pastry in terms of pre-prom necessities, but puff pastry is a close second.

For law prom festivities last year I made a quick and easy Brie en Croute, but since our pre-party was taking place in a hotel room this year and I was unsure of when we would actually be consuming the appetizers I figured I should make something that could be completely finished ahead of time and required no last minute heating. I couldn't seem to get the idea of puff pastry out of my head, so after a little digging around on the internet I decided on palmiers. While they're slightly more work than brie en croute, once you get started you get into a rhythm and can whip out several varieties of them in no time. I read that they freeze well uncooked, so they'd be a great thing to make a few extra rolls of to have in the freezer for emergencies. Puff pastry emergencies.

Here's what you'll need for all varieties of palmiers:

Puff pastry, thawed

1 egg

1 tbsp water

One sheet of puff pastry yields 12-15 palmiers. The egg and water are for an egg wash to brush on the dough before baking. One egg should get you through several sheets of puff pastry.

Start by rolling out a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface until it's about 12" long. Try your hardest to keep it a rectangle. The world will not end if you roll out a blob instead of a rectangle, but a rectangle will be easier to work with.

Cheddar, Bacon & Thyme Palmiers

Step 1: Fry some bacon. I think I only used three of the four strips pictured here, but it's better to make more and snack on some than to not make enough. I promise.

Sprinkle the pastry with grated cheddar (I probably used a few ounces) and fresh thyme. Or dill. Or chives. This is probably as generous you can get with fillings without making it impossible to roll up and slice the pastry.

Crumble the bacon into small pieces (even smaller than this would be good), and sprinkle it over the cheese and herbs.

Roll up the dough lengthwise as tightly as you can, but stop when you're about halfway. If it's not rolled tightly you risk having the fillings fall out once you slice it.

Roll up the opposite edge toward the center so you have a log like the one pictured above.

Wrap the log in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or freeze it until your next puff pastry emergency.

While the pastry is chilling you can whisk an egg with a little water to make an egg wash.

Preheat the oven to 375. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and then cut it into about 1/2" slices with a sharp knife. I found that my bread knife did the best job, but that might have been because my other knives were overdue for a sharpening.

Place the slices on their sides on a baking sheet that's either greased or lined with parchment paper.

Bake for about 10 minutes, then flip and bake for about 5 more minutes or until golden brown. Check out that bubbly cheese!

Post-flip and ready to eat!

Blue Cheese & Toasted Walnut Palmiers

I've been on a bit of a blue cheese kick lately, so I knew I wanted to make some blue cheese palmiers, and I had some walnuts in the freezer which were the obvious partner for the blue cheese. Next time I might add a little jam or apple butter into the mix, but they were perfectly delicious with just the blue cheese and walnuts.

This is just a handful of walnuts, toasted in the oven and chopped.

Sprinkle the blue cheese and walnuts over the pastry. A tiny bit more blue cheese than this probably wouldn't have hurt.

Roll it up.

Refrigerate. Egg wash. Slice.

Even in its raw state it looks tasty.

Here's a before-the-flip/after-the-flip shot. Notice how much the bottom browns.

Berry Jam & Brown Sugar Palmiers

After a couple savory batches I figured I should make a sweet one, and it was the perfect use for the remainder of a jar of mixed berry jam that was in my fridge. I wasn't overly excited about this mixture and assumed that one of the cheese ones would be my favorite, but once I tasted the results I was really, really into the sweet batch.

Put a few globs of jam on the pastry.

Spread it all around. Add a little more if needed.

Sprinkle with some brown sugar.

Roll it up.

Refrigerate. Egg wash. Slice. Bake. Flip.

Attractive and delicious.

Here they are on their fancy platter in our Breakfast at Tiffany's themed room. Yes, we had themed rooms.

And finally a shot of me and my roommates for the night. Check out my blue tights!

Goose Fat-Fried Pommes Frites

(First things first - here is my photographic tribute to the Hawkeyes - Orange Bowl Bound! The bear used to wear an Iowa Hawkeyes sweater, but that was replaced by the turtle shell that he now sports. No, I did not eat that particular turtle, but that gives me an idea for a future post...)

In their early greatness, by the shores of Gitche Gumee by the shining Big-Sea-Water, the native Americans are said to have let no scrap of their buffalo victims go to waste. While not exactly inspired by this noble ideal so much as by my taste for worldly excess, I would like to describe my Thanksgiving tribute to the ancient Iowans whose culture was obviously more humane and evolved than our own... NOT.

This discussion will dovetail nicely with my sister's record of our recent post-Thanksgiving goose - that description being deficient in this key point: THAT GOOSE WAS ONE FAT HONKER. I don't think the picture of the whole goose in her post realistically depicts the sheer volume of grease (oil, fat, lard, blubber, tallow!) that graced the roasting pan when it was time for me to make the gravy. Now, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that most people would not have thought twice about decanting this syrupy mess and throwing it away, but I was under the influence of at least two trains of thought that made me, at that particular moment, unlike most people.

• Number 1 - as soon as we decided we were going to cook a goose, I had been looking forward to cooking the goose liver. Fate intervened, however, and the liver was thrown in a pot of boiling water along with the other offal only to end up not being used at all! No!

• Number 2 - since moving to Chicagoland, I have re-watched several cooking shows where the hosts sample various Chicago eateries and, in the pertinent episode of No Reservations with (pompous douchebag) Anthony Bourdain, what do they feature at a haute dog joint called Hot Doug's but duck-fat french fries? Hmmm...

Today, I'll be talking about cooking potatoes in goose fat. The plan is simple - heat the goose gut in a deep pan until it is really hot. Slice up some potatoes into french fry-shaped strips. Fry.

Let's begin at the beginning - after the goose was done cooking last week, I poured off the crystal clear goose fat into a couple salsa jars and let it cool to room temp before storing it in the fridge, where it turned solid and milky white. [And a week elapses...]

Let's face it, my wife ain't the fried-in-goose-fat type, so I waited until my mom was in town to give these a try. For the record, my mom turns out not to be the fried-in-goose-fat type either and made that clear.

To go with the potatoes, I cooked a corned beef brisket in my slow cooker (recipe: put corned beef in cooker with fatty side up; almost cover with water; add pickling spices that usually come with the beef; turn on low for hours and hours - I find, having 4 or 5 of these figuratively under my belt, that if the fat is above the water you get better results).

Back to the fries. I spooned out of one of the jars into a deep saucepan and set it to low to liquify the fat.

Once it was all melted, I turned the heat up to medium-high.

While it was heating up, I sliced a couple russet potatoes. I prefer the dark, rich flavor of russet potatoes over the creaminess of something like a Yukon gold. According to my mom, I sliced the potatoes thinly enough for me to call them "pommes frites," but I like the original French term "frites de liberté."

Testing the fat:

I added the potatoes and cooked them until they were browned. With these russets, they might look like they are burned, but they were perfect when the outsides were fairly dark brown like the bottom picture. As I mentioned above, my mother was skeptical of my plan, but after trying the fries, she told me "I admit it when I am wrong, and I was wrong about these." I have to say that they certainly are the best fries I've ever made at home, but that's out of a total of maybe 3 attempts. The corned beef was melt-in-your-mouth amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of any of the salads and fresh, healthy, vegetable nonsense that Caryn put together to go along with my decadent 8-hour-cooked meat and meat-flavored vegetables.

Stay tuned for future goose-fat gastronomy. I have another fresh jar plus the leftovers from the fries. I'm at least going to make a pot of beans using the stuff, and I'd be willing to try other recipes if people have ideas.

Pretzels and Pretzel Pups

For months now my mom has been talking about wanting to make pretzels, and since she planted that seed in my head I've been wanting to make them as well. I've certainly never been one to turn down an opportunity to eat a twisted mass of dough. Or dough in pretty much any form, but that's beside the point. My mom wanted to make pretzels, and my brothers and I were happy to assist. Although the process of making something like pretzels or bagels can seem a little daunting at first, once you've done it a couple times it's really no big deal. You just throw everything in a mixer (or not, as my brother has successfully made pretzels sans any sort of special equipment), let it rise, shape it, boil it, and bake it. If you have 5 people working together to do the shaping, it takes no time at all and can be really fun.

After it was settled that we would be making pretzels, my brother mentioned the bagel dogs from Einstein's, and that got the ball rolling on pretzel project #2. Way back when we would buy bagel dogs from Ted, the Schwan's man, but I think Kyle was too busy picking his nose and eating it to remember that. Roasted! Besides, bagel dogs are so fifteen years ago. Pretzel dogs are the new thing. Pretzel pups, rather. Forget about those dried up hot dogs sitting behind the plastic case at Einstein's. Pretzel pups are the real deal.

My mom almost drove into town to pick up smokie links for the pups because she sometimes gets cravings for things we used to feast on back in the 80s (Cheez Whiz, Chef Boyardee ravioli, Bugles), but after discovering a package of Niman Ranch hot dogs in the freezer we decided to just use those. It turns out, not surprisingly, that Niman Ranch makes some top notch hot dogs. I think they actually call them Fearless Franks, but let's be honest, they're hot dogs. As the old saying goes, you can put lipstick on a hot dog, but it's still a hot dog. Am I right?

By the way, I don't mean to turn all Rachael Ray on you by making up a cutesy name like Pretzel Pups. I just felt like busting out a little alliteration. A little alliteration: an oxymoron? Anyway, puppies are so cute, so why not name foods after them?

The pretzel recipe we used is from Bobby Flay, and you can find it here. We doubled the recipe, but we didn't follow it to a T. Instead of muscovado sugar we used regular brown sugar, we didn't have the full amount of yeast so we used slightly less, and we certainly did not use 3/4 cup of baking soda in the boiling water. I don't think using all of that baking soda would hurt anything, but for some reason my brother was adamantly opposed to using so much. In the end it all worked out, and that's what matters.

Soft Pretzels

Slightly adapted from Bobby Flay

1-1/2 cups warm water

1 package active dry yeast

2 tbsp brown sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter

2-1/2 tsp kosher salt

4-1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

Olive oil

About 3 quarts water

About 1/4 cup baking soda

2 whole eggs beaten with 1 tbsp cold water

Coarse sea salt or pretzel salt

Melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Add the water, yeast, and sugar. Turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes so the yeast activates. You could also melt the butter in advance and just combine the four ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.

After the 5 minutes, add the butter mixture to the bowl of a mixer. Add the salt and flour 1/2 or 1 cup at a time, mixing to combine. Once you've added all of the flour, increase the speed to medium for 3 or 4 minutes or until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

If the dough is too wet and not pulling away from the sides after a few minutes you can add more flour in small increments. It will look something like the photo above when it starts to pull away. Remove the dough from the bowl, and transfer it to a flat surface to knead with your hands.

Ahh! My brain has been sucked out of my skull! Unfortunately my numerous talents do not include the ability to cross my eyes, so the whole brain-outside-of-the-skull trick did not work as I had hoped.

Knead the dough a few times and form it into a ball. It should be pretty smooth at this point.

Drizzle some olive oil or vegetable oil in a bowl, add the dough, and turn the dough to coat it. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and set it in a warm spot for about an hour, or until the dough doubles in size.

While the dough is rising, cover a couple baking sheets with parchment paper and spray the paper with cooking spray. Toward the end of the rising period preheat the oven to 425, and turn the heat on under a large pot of water and baking soda.

Pretzel making is fun for the whole family! I'll spare you the more obscene pictures that you can imagine ropes of pretzel dough would produce.

Once the dough is ready, all you have to do is tear of chunks about the size of an orange and roll it into ropes. You could also turn out the dough onto a flat surface and divide it into eight equal pieces, but what fun is that?

Look at that thing fly!

Form the ropes into pretzel shapes (you can add another twist in the middle if you prefer), and they're ready to boil.

Boil the pretzels two at a time for 30 seconds in the water and baking soda.

After boiling, transfer the pretzels to one of the lined baking sheets and brush with the egg wash. Sprinkle liberally with salt or other toppings. My brothers put some minced fresh garlic on a couple of them. Grated cheese would be good, too.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Let them cool for a few minutes before diving in.

Did I mention there was cheese sauce involved? Because there was. My mom would never consider making pretzels if there was not cheese sauce. The original recipe makes a poblano cheese dip, but we didn't have poblanos so we used pickled jalepenos. There was a mustard sauce as well, but I prefer plain old yellow mustard to the sweet, grainy mustard sauce from the recipe.

For the pretzel pups, follow the same steps as above for regular pretzels. The only difference is that you wrap a rope of dough around a hot dog instead of forming it into a pretzel shape. Everything else is the same. Boil the dough with the dog in it, brush it with egg wash, sprinkle with salt, bake until golden, etc. Please, please, please do not skip the step where you make a rope with the dough and just wrap a chunk of dough around the dog or you will end up with more of a hot dog bun than a fully encased hot dog once they are baked. See the difference between the bottom one and the third from the bottom? The third from the bottom one was done properly.

P.S. My apologies to Ted, but homemade pretzel-wrapped hot dogs are so much better than frozen bagel dogs from your big, yellow truck.

P.P.S. If I one day get a wiener dog I am going to make him a pretzel dog costume for Halloween instead of the traditional hot dog costume.