Liqueur di Marmellata di Pompelmo

I tried making scorched orange halves in sugar over the BBQ and forgot about them, leaving the sugar to caramelize very darkly and mercilessly stick the fruit to the pan. I figured I'd dissolve it by adding vodka, and a day later they'd come free. I let them settle and the taste was great: citrusy, dark, complex, amaro-like.  It tasted like an old fashioned liqueur you'd find in Italy, so I've come to think of it as "nona's liqueur".  I've also made it, the same way, with lemon and had the same tasty results.

This time, I'm trying on the stovetop with grapefruit, measuring the quantities to see if I can reproduce it reliably.

450 g Grapefruit (1 whole), halved, sliced
100 g Sugar
750 ml Vodka, clean tasting (I used Frïs here)

Sprinkle half the Sugar in a cast iron pan.
Lay in the sliced Grapefruit.
Add the remaining Sugar.
Let sit to absorb Sugar and draw out the juice.
Heat high and cook down, and begin to caramelize the syrup.
Continue, turning Grapefruit until it gets as dark as you can stand, it will start smoking.
Take off heat and cool.
Pour on Vodka.
Let sit to dissolve baked-on caramel.
Pour into jar and let mellow until your curiosity persuades you to drink it over an ice cube.

Pomme Anna: elegant and buttery

Potatoes au gratin, scalloped potatoes, and Pommes Anna: all variations on thinly sliced potatoes cooked with plenty of rich dairy. The classic gratin has cream and cheese, the scalloped has cream but no cheese, and the Pommes Anna uses only butter. Since we were serving this with creamed spinach, I went with the cream-less Pommes Anna; they make for a stunning presentation.

Some recipes suggest a cast iron skillet and that seems smart for developing a deep crust, but ours was too big for this quantity. We used a heavy black steel pan, maybe 25cm (10 inch) diameter and it worked beautifully, and the spuds didn't even think of sticking. It needs to be oven safe since you're going to bake it hot (no Teflon: nonsticks can release toxic fumes at very high temperatures).

What the hell are "Yellow" potatoes? In the UK you see bin after bin of named varieties; in the US, they're too generic. I don't think what we used were Yukon Golds, but they weren't Russet or "Baking" potatoes either. You're looking for something not waxy and not fluffy. Next time I'd seek out the named Yukon Golds for some repeatability.

Serves 4 as a side

Pommes Anna, after inverting from the skillet

50 g (3 Tbs)   Butter, unsalted
               Black Pepper
               Salt
Pinch          Nutmeg, grated on microplane
700 g (1.5 Lb) "Yellow" Potatoes, peeled

Melt the butter and add the spices to the skillet, swirl around to coat all surfaces. Pour out into a bowl you can dip into it later.

Slice the potatoes thin, at most 1mm (1/16th inch), a mandolin is helpful here;  without rinsing (it removes the starch), layer the slices, slightly overlapping, into the buttered skillet.

Drizzle on some of the melted, seasoned Butter.

Add another layer, repeat with butter and layers until you've used up all the potatoes; I had about five layers, but 3-4 is probably fine.

Drizzle a bit more butter on top, cover with aluminum foil, add a lid to press down, and weight it down to compress a bit.

Sizzle over heat a few minutes to brown the bottom layer.

Place with foiled, weighted, covered skillet in a 220C (425F) oven for about 20 minutes to cook through.

Remove the pan, remove the weights, lid and foil, and return to oven to finish cooking, dry out and brown, about 30 minutes.

After the uncovered baking, nice and browned, and pulling away from the sides of the skillet. 

Test with fork: it should pierce easily.

Loosen if needed with thin spatula run around the side of the pan; turn out onto a plate to invert, it should look gorgeously browned with an attractive rosette pattern from the layers.

Slice carefully so as not to separate the layers, and serve.

Our layers adhered OK to each other but not as coherently as I'd like; I want something that won't separate as I'm cutting it for service. Maybe next time I'd back out the butter between the layers a bit so the starches will gel a bit more. Possibly cook longer and a bit lower with the foil off. 

Creamed Spinach: good and easy

Most of the creamed spinach recipes tell you to boil the spinach, then laboriously squeeze out the water. Or they use a roux or Béchamel sauce. Or they add creamed cheese. Nonsense: this is too much work and masks the flavors. We don't waste time nor flavor here. The spinach below sounds like a lot but it's not once it's cooked down. Serves 2 as a hearty side.

30 g (2 Tbs) Butter, unsalted
2            Scallions, diced
             Salt
             Black Pepper
1 pinch      Hot Chili flakes, if you're feeling frisky
570 g (20 z) Baby Spinach (an entire bag when we buy it)
120 ml (4 z) Heavy Cream

Saute the Shallots in Butter with the Salt, Pepper, Chili until soft.
Add the Spinach in batches; you don't even need to chop it up since it's baby spinach; cover and cook down, stir, add more Spinach, and continue until you've used all of it.
Pour in the Cream and stir well to mix.
Keep the heat on, uncovered: the Spinach will exude more liquid, and this will mix with the Cream, and you want to evaporate that and thicken everything, capturing the Spinach liquid flavor in the Cream.
Continue heating, stirring whenever you think about it, until the Spinach and Cream have reached the unctuous, moist, rich state you want -- 10-20 minutes depending on how aggressive your fire is.

Reducing the cream with the spinach

It doesn't suck with a nicely seared flank steak.

Gumbo

We've been making variations on this gumbo for years based on a recipe from chef Paul Prudhomme. The stock, proteins and even the okra can be swapped out based on your tastes and what you have on hand; the "holy trinity" of Celery, Bell Pepper, and Onion are a must. I used to make the roux in a deep pot over fierce heat, but now I used a large shallow pan and lower heat, and this made for a more relaxed preparation -- the roux darkened nicely while I was prepping the trinity of vegetables.

 120 ml Oil
 100 g  Flour
 160 g  Celery (4 stalks?), sliced
 160 g  Bell Pepper (1), diced
 170 g  Onion (1), diced
 280 g  Andouille Sausage, sliced
 170 g  Okra, sliced
  15 g  Salt
   3    Bay leaves
   2 g  White Pepper
   3 g  Black Pepper
  20 g  Garlic, minced
  15 ml Tabasco Sauce
1500 ml Stock (about 6 cups)
   4    Boiled Eggs, whole, peeled
  10    Shrimp, shelled

Heat the Oil in a large pan big enough to hold the assembled gumbo, and add the Flour. Whisk periodically and allow it to brown to a deep mahogany color -- the darker the roux is, the more flavor you'll get, so don't be timid.
While the roux is cooking, cut up the trinity of vegetables: Celery, Bell Pepper, and Onion.
In a separate pan, brown the Andouille Sausage, remove to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan;
add the Okra and saute a little in the sausage fat, remove to the sausage plate.
Add the stock to the same pot to deglaze and heat.

Once the roux is dark enough, add the trinity of Celery, Onion, Peppers and cook in the hot roux for a few minutes.
Add the seasonings: Salt, Bay, White and Black Pepper, Garlic, and Tabasco; cook a few minutes more.
Add the Stock and mix well so the roux dissolves.
Add the Sausage and Okra.
Cook for a while until the flavors marry, about 30 minutes.
Add the Boiled Eggs to heat through and color the surface.
Just before serving, add the Shrimp and cook until just done.

Serve over rice, topped with a boiled egg sliced in half to expose the yolk.