Chilled Pear Soup with Goat Cheese Fritters

I just had to try it. Once. Usually I don't fuss with composed desserts this much, but I couldn't resist- and even then I eliminated several of the side garnishes on the plate. So what am I talking about? Last fall I came across a recipe for Chilled Pear Soup with Goat Cheese Fritters. I marked it, fully intending to try it when next I saw some very ripe Bartlett pears. Then promptly forgot about it. So here we are, yet another fall (God, the summer went so fast) and when I saw some nice ripe pears in the market, I remembered the recipe and my good intentions. OK then. Make. This. Soup. Now.

Cold fruit soups can be scrumptious especially when combined with a savory like goat cheese. And pears are divine right now. I found nice ripe ones at Whole Foods and, after finding some semolina flour there as well, the muse was upon me. And I've never made a cold dessert soup myself so this should be fun. It's basically a test run for the holidays. So here we go.

Chilled Pear Soup with Goat Cheese Fritters

(Adapted from Sweet Seasons by Richard Leach)

Ingredients:

For the soup:

6 very ripe Bartlett pears

2 vanilla beans, split in half and seeds scraped

1 cup granulated sugar

For the fritters:

vegetable oil, for frying

1 cup fresh goat cheese

1 cup ricotta cheese

2 egg whites

1 cup semolina flour

1/2 cup cake flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

For the timbales:

2 cups goat cheese

1 julienned pear

Method:

Peel, core and dice the pears. Place in a saucepan and add the scraped pods along with the seeds of the vanilla beans. Add sugar and enough water to just cover the pears. Simmer over mediuim heat until pears are tender.

Puree in a food processor and then strain. Refrigerate.

Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 325°. Combine all the fritter ingredients in a bowl and mix until well combined. Drop by the heaping teaspoonful and allow to fry until golden brown on all sides. Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

For the timbales: cream the goat cheese until smooth and pack into 1 inch tambales. Refrigerate.

To assemble:

Unmold the timbales into eight dessert bowls. Carefully place some julienned pears on top of the timbales. Pour the chilled soup around the timbales. Place five goat cheese fritters next to the soup bowls.

And what did I think? It was amazing! The soup was a little sweet but when I dipped in the goat cheese fritter the flavors blended nicely. ( In the future I would make the fritters a tad smaller and put a little less sugar in the pears. You can always add more before you puree.) And don't forget you can make and chill the pear soup way ahead of time, then fry the timbales at the last minute.

Figs, Pigs and Fat Cats

My daughter went back to New York City yesterday. It will be lonely around here without her as she is my best friend but she has her own life to lead…. including the fall re-opening of her gallery next week. This first show brings with it hopes for a better year in the contemporary art world. I’m crossing my fingers.

And with her went Prince, her chubby cat, who was visiting for a while. I am not terribly sorry to see HIM go as not only did we have to clear all side tables (and a mantel) of bric a brac (which he was way too curious about considering he is male) but he also had the nerve to bite me twice, the little stinker. And drew blood.

Well scars aside, my daughter and I made lots of new recipes during her visit; she’s an excellent cook considering she has so little time to spend in the kitchen. Because she is not much of a dessert-eater her choices tend to be veggies, fish or chicken. She came to me one day with a Gourmet magazine open to a page featuring a Cornish game hen dish with figs and bacon. As far as I was concerned, those ingredients sounded delish…and luckily I had the figs, some bacon was in the freezer so we were left to purchase game hens and some fresh thyme.
I didn’t see how we could go wrong and I was right. It was fabulous. Although next time I would add more figs as I could have eaten many more- can anything be quite as good as a roasted, caramelized fig? And it was just as good the next night. By the way, don’t you love Gourmet’s name for the recipe?

Figgy, Piggy Cornish Hens
(Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2009)

Ingredients:
½ pound bacon, halved
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced lengthwise
4 Cornish hens, about 1 ½ pounds, halved lengthwise (ours were a little bigger)
12 fresh sprigs of thyme
12 fresh black figs, halved or quartered if large
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:
Preheat oven to 500°. Place rack in upper third of your oven.Cook the bacon in a large skillet until crisp and then drain on paper towels. Add garlic to the pan and cook until golden. Transfer garlic to the paper towels.
Dry the hens and season with salt and pepper. Reheat the fat in the skillet until it starts to smoke and then add the hens, skin side down. Cook about 6 minutes. Transfer hens to a 4-sided baking sheet, skin side up. Reserve the skillet.
Scatter the thyme and figs all over and around the hens. Bake until done, about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, deglaze the pan with the lemon juice, scraping up the brown bits, for about 30 seconds.
Remove the hens to a serving platter, pour the lemon juice gravy over the hens and then scatter the bacon and garlic on top.

Toffee and caramel and butterscotch, oh my!

Does it seem to you this is a summer of butterscotch recipes? Cookies, bars, cakes- you name it. Well lucky me because butterscotch is a favorite - doesn’t have to be in baked goods either: butterscotch hard candy, butterscotch sticky toffee, butterscotch sauce (on vanilla ice cream, what else?) butterscotch fudge and just in case you still don’t get it, I also include anything labeled toffee and caramel (nearly the same thing as butterscotch) in this list. But when you combine it with chocolate (or cinnamon like Grace did in some of her recent recipes) you have a double whammy.

Now about Grace: please tell me you read her food blog- A Southern Grace. I never miss it. I love her way with words, love her recipes and her sense of humor; best of all, Grace has been a faithful reader  of my blog which I bow down and thank her for as we all know how hard it is to get started and get comments. Don’t you love reading comments? Even on someone else’s blog. Some make me laugh, or offer great suggestions, or sympathize with our problems. I think comments keep us both happy and humble. Usually.

Well anyway….I just have to chime in on all these butterscotch recipes with my mother’s Toffee Cookies. They are always on my cookies tray for holidays. They combine chocolate with the toffee and the cookies are crunchy, not soft. As with many of her recipes, I have a feeling this one came from one of her cooking classes as no author is credited on the recipe card. Usually she says: “Sally’s Birthday Cake” or “Aunt Suzie’s Bread Pudding”; but on this card….nothing. Therefore: cooking class.

While these really are cookies (I mean it, they are), they are cooked as though they are a bar and then cut diagonally. I can remember seeing mother laying her enormous yardstick over the baking pan, measuring and cutting so that each “cookie” ended up looking like a perfect diamond. (Of course then you are always left with the corners…. perfect for sneaking bites.) Also, she loved walnuts and used those. I love pecans so I substituted them. And she used Hershey’s chocolate bars- the thin ones. I used a combination of bittersweet and milk chocolate thin Ghirardelli bars. Your choice. I refrigerate mine because I live in a high humidity state; you northerners just need to place them in a sealed container.

Toffee Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup salted butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

1 egg yolk

1 1/2 cups flour

6 thin chocolate bars, any kind you want

1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted, or walnuts if you prefer

1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cream butter, sugar and add egg yolk. Add flour gradually. Add vanilla.

Spread dough in a lightly greased 15 1/2 by 10 1/2 by 1 inch pan. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Lay chocolate bars on top. When they melt, spread them around and sprinkle with pecans.

When cool, cut in diagonals. I do this with a yardstick from opposite corners as a guide.