Sunday, September 12, 2010

NY CHEESECAKE a la JUNIOR'S...made GF

800px-juniorsdusk1



 The World-Famous Junior's at Dusk
The traditional Juniors recipe calls for a sponge cake base. For this gluten-free version, I do a cookie and nut crust, which is my preference. The recommended products are wheat-and-gluten free at the time of this writing. However, if you have celiac disease, you should always double-check when making a purchase. Product formulations change frequently and without warning. No assumptions please.

The recipe
Serves 12

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Prepare the cookie crust:

  • 1 1/4 c gluten-free pecan shorties, or other gluten-free packaged or homemade cookie of your choice, made into crumbs
  • 1/4 c granulated sugar
  • ½ c finely chopped pecans
  • 4 T unsalted butter, melted
Mix all four ingredients well and pour into the bottom of a nine-inch, non-stick spring-form pan.  Using the back of a tablespoon, pat the crust down firmly.  Bake for ten minutes. Remove the pan.  Wrap the bottom with foil. Place the pan on a cookie tray.  Leave the oven on.

The filling:


Mix, assemble, bake, and chill:

Put one 8-ounce package of the cream cheese, half of the sugar and the starch in a large mixing bowl. Beat at the lowest speed on your mixing, scraping the bowl from time to time to make sure that the ingredients mix well.  Beat in the remaining three package of cheese and the remaining sugar in increments.  Blend in the vanilla. Add the eggs in two increments.  Beat at high-speed for 2 minutes. Add the heavy cream, beating at low until just blended, taking care not to over mix the filling. 


Spoon the filling into the pan, gently. Place the spring-form pan in a bain Marie, a large shallow pan with enough hot water to come up one-inch on the spring-form pan.

Bake the cheesecake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Cool the cake on a wire rack for 1 hour/10 minutes. Do not open the oven when the cake is baking.  At the end of the baking time, the cheesecake should be firm around the edges and have a slight jiggle in the middle.  Remove it from the oven. Cool on a wire rack. Then cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Once chilled, remove the sides of the spring-form pan. You can leave the cake on the spring-form bottom and just place it on an attractive serving dish. Refrigerate left-overs . . . if there are any!

STRAWBERRY SUMMER

I am fortunate in the location I've picked to live now that I've downsized to one person (me) and small place. I've chosen a very Brooklyn-spot here in Northern California. By that I mean, everything I need is in walking distance: groceries, pharmacies, restaurants (several Zagat rated), theatre, library, town square, Saturday Farmers' Market, a museum (tiny - not like New York), and a public transportation hub were bus lines and train lines intersect. I love it. This is very un-California like where you have to get into a car to run the slightest errand. Right now we are having unaccustomed heat. Yesterday it was up to 110. Today 107 is predicted. No air conditioning. Usually the weather here is temperate and we all make do with fans.

I walked into Whole Foods yesterday and there was a wealth of organic strawberries, bright red, plump, and cheerful. What is a summer without strawberries? I rarely have them with cream as in Simic's poem above, but I do love them on top of cottage cheese with a sprinkle of slivered almonds. Unadultured strawberries are fine too ... Mother Nature's fast food. Mom would do with Jell-O, so here's another retro recipe for a too-hot-to-cook day, though I see it 66° now with a high of 75° predicted along with some rain in Brooklyn. It must be humid though.

MOM'S RETRO STRAWBERRY SUMMER JELLO DESSERT

The recipe
Serves six
  • 1 1/4 cups boiling water
  • 1 3-oz. package of strawberry flavored gelatin
  • 10-oz. of fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
  • 1 8 3/4-oz. can of pineapple
  • 1 fresh banana, sliced
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Empty the package of gelatin into a bowl. Pour the boiling water over the gelatin and stir until it has desolved. Add the juice from the pineapple. Partially chill until the mixture is cook and starting to thicken but is not set. When the gelatin is cook, add the fruits and nuts. Pour into a one-quart mold. If you spray it with a cooking spray, it will be easier to unmold. When it is firm, unmold the gelatin dessert onto a pretty plate. Serve with fresh, unsweetened whipped cream.

THE BROOKLYN COOKBOOK

"Brooklynites are fiercely loyal to neighborhood, family, and the food that nourishes them, body and soul." From the Introduction to The Brooklyn Cookbook by Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy. It's not a gluten-free cookbook, but it's great nostalgia and some recipes are easily adapted.
No doubt you can find many books on Brooklyn cooking with healthier and more up-to-date recipes than those inThe Brooklyn Cookbook. However, I don't think you will find another book that offers such canticle to life in Brooklyn as it lives in the memory of the boomers. It's our story and what a story it is.


The real values and pleasures of this book are in the old pictures, the stories of famous and not so famous Brooklynites, and the restaurants, not all of which have come and gone. It's not elegant, but it dazzles. It offers a celebration of history, custom, roots, neighborhoods within neighborhoods, icons and landmarks. It explores the seventy-three mile center of the universe, the world's melting pot, which at that time had ninety-three ethnic groups. With such a rich and stimulating diversity, it's no wonder that Brooklyn has given the world so many poets, playwrights, authors, musicians, actors, and Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners.


If you remember fondly the Spumoni Gardens, Nathan's Famous, Lundy's, and buying fish at Sheepshead Bay, you'll love finding them all here again.  The book starts with the Canarsie Indians and Dutch arrival in the new world, The Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House and baked indian pudding.  It ends with the hospitality management program atErasmus Hall and cranberry-orange relish cups.


In between you have such delights as Cammareri Bakery, enshrined forever in the movie, Moonstruck. It includes one of my great loves, Danny Kaye with his recipe for Szechwan beef or pork in bau bien. The Dodger's are gone forever from Brooklyn, but they live on in The Brooklyn Cookbook and food to take to the ball game. Dem bums. Oh, dem bums. I wasn't even a baseball fan in those days, but they were on my radar.  In this cookbook, you can once again visit The Subway Riviera, Little Odessa by the Sea, and the Seaside Suburb.


Do you remember having pizza gran for dessert on Easter Sunday?  You'll find it here. Is kibbe bissaneeyah your thing?  It's here.  How about kasha varnishkas? Want Henny Youngman's recipe for cheese blintzes? You got it. That's here too. The old ethnic groups and the newer ones enrich the book as they enriched our lives.  The Brooklyn Cookbook is about more than food. It's about the people who make Brooklyn so loveable and memorable.

LOVE AND CARDAMOM


But Mrs Caldera is baking cookies,
she is humming a song from childhood,
her arms are heavy and strong,
they have held babies, a husband ...
Mrs. Caldera's House of Things, Gregory Djanikian, in About Distance
Copyright: All rights reserved.

It's almost upon us, rusty autumn with its promise
of feast days, holidays, and crispy winter
And I stand caught between blue oceans and bluer sky
Singing songs of purple harvest, golden grains
Prepping the kitchen for fall and winter, these are days
stuffed like date-filled cookies with
mellow thoughts of homemade goodies
·
Maybe this year Lebanese shortbread and
An apple-plus pie stained with the last of
the bramble berries and cinnamon scented
A pumpkin cheesecake with streusel topping
Perhaps a struffoli for Christmas, nut colored
honey soaked and cheerily doted with sprinkles
·
After suffocating summer, autumn comes
crashing and banging with cooling breezes
school supplies, renewed energy, and sweet
oven-baked dreams
smelling of love and cardamom





Public domain photograph of the traditional Neopolitan Christmas sweet and Brooklyn delight, struffoli, courtesy ofSteve-081 via Wikipedia. (This is a repost from my poetry site, Musing by Moonlight.)

LASAGNA, BEST BROOKLYN MEMORY

lasagna_1_bg_082101
Photograph by PD Photo.org
I have such an unrelenting food-trivia tracker, that I don't know how I missed National Lasagna Day . . . or Month . . . your choice . . . in July.  It finally crossed my radar while I was checking my favorite Brooklyn picture blogs. I haven't found any official source of information.  Well, after all, what industries could claim it?.  So many . . . pasta makers, tomato growers, cheese manufactures, purveyors of frozen foods, spice growers, and the restaurant industry.  Perhaps there are too many players for any one to lay a claim. The articles and postings I've found are inconsistent with regard to length.  Is it a one-day celebration or a month-long celebration?  I guess it depends on the depth of your devotion. At any rate, I doubt that Brooklyn needs an official day to celebrate this wonderful ethnic dish.

I'm surprised that whomever started this tradition, scheduled it in July.  Too hot!  A good, properly made lasagna takes hours to prepare.  Although there are shortcuts. One innovation layers ravioli for what is certainly a quick - and probably a tasty - alternative.
I used to make a "mock lasagna" in the summer time. I would gather together some of my own frozen tomato sauce or some prepared sauce,  full-fat ricotta, hard mozzarella, Ronzoni ochi de lupo (a wonderful, large macaroni), and various spices. I'd chop the cheese, cook the pasta, and warm the sauce.  Then I'd put all the ingredients together in a large pot on a medium gas, stirring well until the mozzarella was melted and the lasagna was hot.  Not particularly attractive, but the flavor was right. Add a green salad, some vino for the husband du jour, and we were set to go. It was quick.  The kitchen remained bearable.  I never had any complaints.

As I look back, I don't think I've ever encountered a lasagna I didn't like; but, quality ingredients and a good, classic, homemade meat-sauce, produces the best product. This means using homemade or artisan noodles, fresh high-quality cheeses, fresh herbs and spices, a variety of meats, good extra-virgin olive oil, and your own garden tomatoes or canned Italian plum tomatoes with basil. A superior lasagna requires a willingness to invest considerable time and money for something that will be immensely enjoyed, but pretty quickly polished off by family and guests, not to mention you.

My childhood and youth were rich in good cooks. A significant number of them were from Italy or were first generation Americans of Italian decent.  My schoolmate, Fran V., and her mom made trays of lasagna on a regular basis and brought them from their home in Rego Park, Queens to our convent school in Brentwood, Long Island on Sunday afternoons. Mrs. V. would use imported noodles, which had a wonderful bite.  Her sauce and her lasagna included a lot of delicious pork sausage with fennel seed.  Mrs. D., another friend's mother, lived near the Russian embassy in Glen Cove, Long Island.  She would always stud a large white onion with cloves and put that in her sauce as it simmered, removing it before serving. Nice flavor.
Everyone did something that made their sauce uniquely theirs.  Some used wine. Mrs. D. felt there should be some heat and added dried red pepper.  My high school sweetheart's mom didn't agree.  She added a pinch of sugar to her sauce. One family added cinnamon, which strikes me as quite a Greek thing.  Most added nutmeg to their ricotta. I knew women who thickened their sauce through long-hours of simmering.  Other's speeded the process by adding a can of tomato paste.  I think the latter makes for a highly acid sauce.  I have found through time that the addition of meatballs with their breadcrumbs serves well as a thickening. Everyone used Locatelli brand Romano. No dry, tasteless cheese from little, round, green containers.

My Aunt Mildred (see also the post on Roman Egg Drop Soup) was the best of the Brooklyn cooks.  She was a first-generation Italian-American. She used chicken in her sauce along with the other meats.  The meats included a small tenderloin of pork, Italian pork sausages (sweet and hot) and braciole (top round, sliced thin and pounded, rolled around a savory filling, and tied with cotton string).  Meatballs were standard additions to everyone's meat sauce, and my Aunt Mildred's were the gold standard. They were made from beef, sometimes from a combination of beef, pork, and veal. Generally eggs, seasoned Italian breadcrumbs, generous amounts of fresh, minced parsley,and grated Romano were incorporated into the ground meat, which was then formed into balls and browned in a fry pan before going into the sauce to simmer.

When assembling the lasagna, these wonderful old-world cooks would crumble meatballs and sausages and layer the crumbled meats in the lasagna along with the noodles, cheeses, and the sauce.  Most of the time, the sauce and the lasagna would be made a day or more ahead.  When this dinner was finally served, usually on Sunday, it started with a voluptuous vegetable salad with plenty of salty, oily olives . There was wine for the adults and water for the children. The meats were set out in a side dish. Extra sauce was served in a gravy boat. Big chunks of Locatelli Romano would be passed around the table along with a Muli grater, enabling each of us to have freshly grated cheese on our noodles. There were always dense, fragrant slices of Italian bread fresh from small, local, family-run bakeries. Sopping up extra meat sauce with the bread was a must and a delight. Dessert might be a selection of pastries, or fresh fruit that had been macerated or simmered in wine, or Amoretti cookies. There was espresso coffee too, often with grappa or a slice of lemon peel.

Lasagna Day or Lasagna Month, it's an interesting concept, but in the Brooklyn of my childhood, we didn't need an event. Many, many Sundays were lasagna day. It was quite a regular thing. I think it has probably become more and more difficult for people to come up with the time and money for such memorable civilities.

Actual product ingredients may differ from than that which is shown or suggested on this blog. Please remember that you should not rely solely on the information presented here or anywhere online and that you always read labels, warnings, and directions before purchasing and consuming a product. 

NEW YORK HOT DOG WITH CLASSIC SABRETT ONION SAUCE

Jackie Robinson broke the color-barrier when he began to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1957. This is a photograph from Look Magazine. It is now in the Library of Congress collection, LC Reproduction Number: LC-L9-54-3566-O, #7.
"A hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz." Humphrey Bogart
Reproduction of a 1908 postcard picturing Surf Avenue, Coney Island, New York via Wikipedia.
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that anyone living anywhere else has got to be, in some sense, kidding." John Updike
For most people who came of age in Brooklyn of the 40s and 50s, there are probably three stand-out memories of New York hot dogs - hot dogs at the ballpark, hot dogs at Coney Island, and hot dogs from a Sabrett street cart.  Part of the memory is Sabrett's tangy, tantalizing and spicy orange-red sauce.
Sabrett products from their website.
Sabrett and Hebrew National hot dogs were and probably still are the most favored. Sabrett's, according to their website, is wheat-and-gluten free. I have found reference saying that Hebrew National hot dogs are as well. If you have celiac disease, be sure to do your own homework.
This homemade version of the onion sauce so beloved by New Yorkers is naturally wheat-and-gluten free.

New York Style (Sabrett's) Onion Sauce
This recipe
Will top about six hot dogs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil, the light variety
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon corn syrup
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup white vinegar
In a large pan over a low-to-medium heat, brown the onions in oil until they are tender and light golden, not brown. Lower the heat. Desolve the cornstarch in the water, whisking to blend well.  Add the cornstarch and water mixture to the onions, mixing well. Add the rest of the ingredients except the vinegar and mix gently. Bring the onion mixture to a boil, then lower the heat. Simmer for about twenty-five minutes to thickened and reduce the sauce. Add the vinegar and simmer for another ten minutes.

Actual product ingredients may differ from than that which is shown or suggested on this blog. Please remember that you should not rely solely on the information presented here or anywhere online and that you always read labels, warnings, and directions before purchasing and consuming a product. 

RETRO DESSERT RECIPE

Library of Congress photograph of Mamie Eisenhower.

Gelatin has been around for almost forever and used in both sweet and savory dishes. Apparently, though, the ubiquitous, jiggly dessert we now know, is relatively new culinary treat. When I was growing up, it was popular because it was sweet, cheap, and easy to make. Non-cooks like my mother loved it.
Apparently so did such prestigious homemakers as Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower. When the first lady’s recipe for “Frosted Mint Delight” was published in one of the women’s magazines, my mother decided that this pedestrian dessert was, in fact, quite elitist. By God, if it was good enough for Mamie, it was good enough for us.
So, that Christmas, we had Mamie's Frosted Mint Delight. Can you imagine? We were living on 90th and Fort Hamilton Parkway in Bay Ridge then, just one-half block from Louisa's Italian Restaurant and Louisa's fabulous Biscuit Tortoni. A short train-ride would have taken us to Junior's and N.Y. Cheesecake.  We were a twenty-minute walk from the Syrian Grocery and the honey-sweet delight of fresh baklava. But we had jello for Christmas dessert.
Mom was irritated when the recipe went missing and she was unable to make it ever again.  Well, she just didn’t look far enough for it.  It was in my junk box, which is why I can share it with you today. Sorry, Mom!
Click here for Mrs. Eisenhower’s so-called “Red Scare” Jello Dessert and background info. It’s a funny, but it does go to prove Mamie was famous for gelatin desserts.
If this old-time recipe appeals and you need to go gluten-free, you know the drill. Be sure to find the brands that are wheat-and-gluten free.

Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Frosted Mint Delight
The recipe
Serves 10-12
  • 2 1-lbs. cans of crushed pineapple
  • 3/4 cup mint flavored apple jelly
  • 1 pint whipping cream
  • 2 teaspoons confection’s sugar
  • 1 package unflavored gelatin
Have all the ingredients chilled.  Melt the jelly and mix the crushed pineapple into it. Dissolve the package of gelatin in one cup of the juice from the pineapple.  Mix the gelatin mixture into the jelly mixture.  Whip the cream, sweeten it with the sugar, and fold it into the mixture.  Put it into the freezer until firm.  Do not freeze solid.

PASTA FAZOOL, Brooklyn Soul Food

No matter where we live or what we seek in our hunger and loneliness, food is necessary for life.  It's the great common denominator. We all have to eat.  This unassuming soup (Past Fagioli) - in Brooklyn slang it's pasta fazool - is made of pasta and beans in tomato broth is true Brooklyn soul food.  You can feed an army with it on a few bucks.  It's comforting and tummy warming and can be thrown together quickly when you are pressed for time.

Back in our Brooklyn days - when we were slender and young and unconcerned with cholesterol and saturated fats - we saved bacon fat to sauté the garlic, a custom left-over from the Depression, I suspect.  You can still do that if you are not fighting the battle of the bulge. It does add a nice, smokey flavor and, if you've saved it from your breakfast bacon, it's certainly a cheap fat. Nonetheless, we use olive oil these days and tend to avoid bacon.
If you have time, the most economical way to make this dish is prepare your beans from dried beans.  Follow the package directions. In the interest of speed, I use canned beans here. Back home, I would only have used Progresso beans if I didn't do the beans from scratch. These days in California, I'm more likely to use canned beans from Eden Organic Foods. Times, people, and priorities change, but both brands taste good.
Photograph courtesy of Eden Foods.
Warning: Do not use quinoa or corn pasta in this dish.  Brown rice pasta works best.


PASTA FAGIOLI (Pasta with Beans)
The recipe
Serves six
  • 3 tablespoons of olive oil, does not have to be first press
  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1 small can of tomato paste
  • 1 quart of water
  • 2 cups of brown rice pasta, cooked and rinsed
  • 1 can of cannellini beans or red kidney beans, drain the beans and rinse
  • 1 teaspoon of oregano
  • 1/2 cup of fresh parsley, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 small white onion, slivered
  • 1/2 cup of store-bought or homemade pesto (optional)
  • sea salt to taste
  • freshly grated Romano cheese
In a soup pot, gently sauté the garlic in the olive oil being careful not to burn it. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon.  When it begins to color, add the tomato paste and fry the paste and garlic together for a minute or two on a low-to-medium heat continuously stirring the mixture.  Add the water slowly, mixing well to dilute the paste.  Add the parsley, oregano, red pepper flakes and salt,  but reserve the pesto and the slivered onions. When the soup begins to simmer, add the beans and pasta and heat through. Taste to adjust seasoning.  Ladle into soup bowls and pass the onions, cheese and pesto around the table so that each person can season their bowl to taste. If you are not using pesto, you can top each bowl with a spoonful or two of raw high-quality extra-virgin olive oil before serving.
Variations: If you have left-over carrots, or meat, or sausages, they are easily and happily added.

Photograph courtesy of Progresso Foods.
Progresso soups are not wheat-and-gluten free. 

Actual product ingredients may differ from than that which is shown or suggested on this blog. Please remember that you should not rely solely on the information presented here or anywhere online and that you always read labels, warnings, and directions before purchasing and consuming a product.