Welcome back to my weekly edition of Friday Food Finds, the newsletter I hope will give you a little inspiration in your kitchen in the week ahead. I’m going to switch up the formatting this week in order to give you more streamlined information. As always though, I’m open to feedback, so please let me know whether you like this approach or not!
Lately (i.e. since becoming a mom of two 2+ years ago) I’ve struggled with meal prep. No matter my best intentions, somehow planning for and getting a head start on meals feels like an astronomical feat. Either the time is just not there, or my brain can’t seem to process plans that go beyond the 24-hour window.
In any case, this lack of meal planning has left me preparing many last-minute meals. Sometimes those meals are delicious home runs and sometimes they’re merely edible (both are okay!). This past week, I managed to cook two recipes that I considered to be closer to the I’ll-be-making-this-again end of the scale: Shakshuka by Joan Nathan on the My Jewish Learning website and Lowcountry Shrimp and Grits from Toni Tipton-Martin’s Jubilee cookbook.
The shakshuka1 recipe I came across haphazardly (I’m giving a presentation this weekend for a screening of Breaking Bread, a documentary about the annual A-Sham food festival in Haifa, Israel, and I wanted to familiarize myself with the diverse origins and influences of Israeli cuisine), though it’s not the first time I’ve made the dish. This recipe is very straight forward (as are most shakshuka recipes), yet results in big sweet, sour, tomato flavor. I swapped in 4 duck eggs and used a 10” (not 12”) cast iron skillet for the poaching step. I wasn’t sure about breaking the yolks with a fork, but I did it and found that my eggs cooked a little past the point I wanted them to be. Start to finish, the dish took about 40 minutes to prepare, an entirely reasonable amount of time for last-minute meal planners like me.
As for the shrimp and grits2, I’ve had this recipe mentally bookmarked for over a year, and I’m so grateful I finally managed to make it. The flavors and textures of this dish are impeccable; from the smooth, creamy base, to the concentrated flavors of the silky gravy, to the crispy morsels of bacon and al dente shrimp. My pantry is sadly not stocked with grits, so I used some organic polenta from Maine Grains (cooked as instructed) in its place. I also started with just 3/4 pound of shrimp since I wasn’t counting on big eating from the kids and didn’t want any leftovers. This did not change the other volume amounts I used in making the gravy.
On the baking front, I didn’t manage to give Mary Berry’s hot cross buns another try. Instead, I seized a window of time to bake with my daughter, who was eager to put her new Easter/spring-themed cookie cutters to use. And I took some liberties with my bread duty for Easter dinner.
It seems like I’m discovering new recipe websites left and right these days, and one I’ve taken a quick liking to is Kitchen Stories. I used their test kitchen manager’s Sablés (French Butter Cookies)3 recipe for our cut-out cookie project. And while I don’t necessarily recommend using a sablé dough for cut-out cookies, I was relatively pleased with how these turned out.
Since time is always of the essence when baking with younger kids, I expedited this recipe and skipped the chilling step, which worked surprisingly well. The cookies may have been a little tougher in the end, but the dough was not at all difficult to work with at room temperature. We ended up with deliciously buttery cookies that had a bit more bite to them than a traditional sablé. Besides the butter and a faint hint of vanilla, they’re fairly neutral in flavor, which did not bother us in the least!
Moving on to Easter dinner, I was having a hard time coming up with the right bread to bake, so instead I turned to a bread-adjacent dish that I thought would work well with the leg of lamb my mom was roasting: Yorkshire Puddings!4 This recipe from Edd Kimber (of Great British Baking Show fame) was interesting to me because it called for a volume amount of eggs, not an even number of them. I find that curious, but it’s a nice solution to the variety of egg sizes you’ll come across, especially if you’re using eggs from your (or someone else’s) backyard hens.
In my case, I had some large white eggs leftover from my egg-dying project with the kids, and I ended up using 4 of those plus an egg white I had hanging out in my refrigerator. I’d like to believe that the extra egg white made these Yorkshire puddings puff that much more, but I’d have to conduct further testing to be sure. Regardless, the puddings puffed like a dream and were the ideal combination of crispy on the outside and soft and eggy on the inside.
Instead of oil or lard, I used leftover bacon fat, which proved just flavorful enough to add intrigue to the puddings. And the only slight fault I found with these was that they were not salty enough, despite the fact that I was generous with my pinch. If you like your salt as much as I do, I recommend trying a heaping 1/4 teaspoon. I also highly recommend the bacon fat!
All in all, this felt like a more successful week of kitchen endeavors for me. How about for you? I’d love to hear about what you’re making.
A quick heads up about next week. I am heading to a conference this weekend and then will be taking some time to be with my family during school vacation next week, so you likely won’t see a post from me until we turn the calendar to May. I hope you all have a wonderfully delicious week in the meantime!
Shakshuka (also known as shakshouka or chakchouka) is a dish of eggs poached in an aromatic tomato sauce. Its origins are somewhat disputed, with various countries along the Mediterranean and Red Seas taking claim. However shakshuka is confirmed to have come about after tomatoes were introduced to these regions from the New World in the mid 1700s. Traditionally served for breakfast, shakshuka has gained popularity around the world as a versatile dish to be enjoyed at any meal.
Traditional to the lowcountry coasts of North and South Carolina and Georgia, shrimp and grits, according to Toni Tipton-Martin, is more often referred to in African American cookbooks as shrimp gravy or smuttered shrimp (Gullah-Geechee), or breakfast shrimp with tomatoes (Louisiana Creole). It’s historically a breakfast dish, though today it’s not uncommon to enjoy it for lunch or dinner.
Sablés are French round shortbread cookies that originated in the town of Sablé-sur-Sarthe in 1670. They’re now practically synonymous with Brittany, with la Mère Poulard being one of the most recognizable brands. Sablés get their name from their sandy texture, which is thanks to the high proportion of fat (from butter and egg yolks) in the dough.
Affectionately known as Yorkies, Yorkshire puddings are made from an egg, milk, and flour batter that relies on steam (instead of yeast or leavener) to rise. They originated in England and are similar to American popovers in a lot of ways. They’re distinct because fat (typically meat drippings) is used to essentially fry the puddings in the oven, whereas for popovers the fat (typically butter) is mixed directly into the batter. Yorkshire puddings are also usually baked in a pan with shallow wells, while popovers are baked in a pan with deeper wells. A muffin pan works adequately for both Yorkshire puddings and popovers.
Love the Friday Food Finds! I look forward to it every week. These recipes look delicious. Thank you and have a good April break!