Italian Plum Cake and Mysteries of Life

There are books, wonderful books, well-written, which I have enjoyed and appreciated, yet if asked later about the story line, I might only be able to tell you about a bit of food.   Plum Cake, case in point, from the recent and excellent novel by Donna Leon, The Golden Egg.

As one reviewer, Ms. Goring at The Herald, stated: "We find ourselves once more in the company of Commissario Guido Brunetti, a gentlemanly, bookish policeman who never takes a short cut if it would impede his ruminations on life."  A domestic tragedy, and mystery involving the death of a local boy, a deaf-mute, his neighbors believe.  Things are not always what they seem on the surface, and Paola, Brunetti's equally bookish wife, refuses to let things alone.  She encourages her husband to find out more about the sad-eyed young man, and why he died.

And she bakes her family a fabulous Plum Cake.  Her son equates it with God.  I don't know that I would go that far.  Though God did give us plums.

Hawaiian style - Poke, rhymes with okey dokey

Poke is a local treat, usually made with raw ahi tuna, though other fish are used as well, mixed with some type of seaweed, green onion, and various spices.  The secret ingredient is often roasted kukui nut, also called candlenut, which together with Hawaiian salt, make up that special flavor combination known around here as Inamona.

With a handy Kukui (Candlenut) tree in our back garden, I decided to go through the process of making my own inamona.  I had gathered a basket full and let the nuts brown in the sun for several weeks, as per directions found online.  

Clares Lace Cookies

 

One thing to love about the "Aunt Dimity" series of mysteries by Nancy Atherton, is a lovely recipe added in at the end.  Something casually featured in the story, nice but not necessary.  Just delicious.  And for lovers of good food and murder mysteries (what exactly is the connection there?) the perfect ending.  You not only get the puzzle solved but a treat as well.  That is if you make the effort to cook it up.

Right now I'm reading Aunt Dimity: Detective, and the treat at the end is The Pym Sisters' Gilded Gingerbread, which I'm looking forward to trying.  These Lace Cookies were the nice surprise, the fillip to finish Aunt Dimity's Christmas.  Light, crispy and delectable.

Creamy Dill Sauce with Tunaballs for Daring Cooks

The June Daring Cooks’ challenge sure kept us rolling – meatballs, that is! Shelley from C Mom Cook and Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to try meatballs from around the world and to create our own meatball meal celebrating a culture or cuisine of our own choice.

I chose to do another take on my Tunaballs, with a different sauce.  The last time I made these Magnificent Tuna meat balls it was a variation of a variation on Jamie Oliver's.  This one is a variation on an old Fish Patties recipe of mine, origin unknown, deep in the dark past.  An old recipe 3x5 card.

What I like about this version is the utter simplicity, not to mention good taste.  Also, utter simplicity, the Creamy Dill Sauce, and just what the Tunaball Dr. ordered to be lopped around and over them.  Thank you Nancy for the lovely home-grown dill.

I would say this is a mixed ethnic expression.  Like me, and probably many of us, a blend of various cultures and genetic background.  There's a bit of the Scandinavian in both the sauce and those fishy balls.  Not exactly lutefisk, thank God.  Though I'm sure there are a few Norwegians who have made left-over lutefisk into balls or patties.  A dollop of Italian in the pasta. Not sure what cuisine uses ground sunflower seeds as a binder?  So in celebration of cultural smorgasbords.

As I shared in that earlier post, it would be a culinary travesty to use fresh ahi tuna in these.  Sorry Jamie.  The whole point is to take something from your pantry, a can of tuna, and turn it into something special.  Flake and mix with the seasonings, and ground sunflower seeds. 

Tuna Balls with Creamy Dill Sauce

1 can tuna, drained
1/2 chopped onion
1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice
3/4 cup ground sunflower seeds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
seasoning/optional additions:
2 anchovies
1-2 tablespoons minced dill or sage
2 teaspoons chopped capers
salted preserved lemon, minced
3/4 oz. grated parmesan cheese

Sauté the onion in a bit of oil until translucent.  Flake fish in bowl and add remaining ingredients.  Mix well and form into balls, squeezing together  (wet your hands with a little water).  Put the tuna balls onto a baking pan lined with parchment paper and let sit while you preheat your oven to 400F.

Bake for about 20 minutes or 'til lightly golden.

Sauce
1 cup cream
1/2 cup finely minced fresh dill
1/4 cup white wine
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper to taste

Begin heating 2/3 cup of the cream in a skillet.  Meanwhile, beat the egg yolk well into 1/3 cup of the cream, add the wine and whisk into the heated cream.   Continue whisking while it simmers, and until thickened.  Add the dill and Tuna Balls, then heat through.

Serve with pasta or potatoes, add a bit of salad or maybe some steamed asparagus.  I marinated cooked, cooled beets for a salad to go alongside.  We enjoyed this Challenge meal.  Both the tuna balls and sauce were delicious.  Wasn't really much of a challenge though, to tell you the truth.   Easy peasy.

Friday Book Beginnings

This is a new meme for me, focusing on books, rather than books plus food or just food.   Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays, about which she says:

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

My beginning is taken from Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich.  The first paragraph actually.

New Jersey was 40,000 feet below me, obscured by cloud cover.  Heaven was above me, beyond the thin skin of the plane.  And hell was sitting four rows back.  Okay, maybe hell was too strong.  Maybe it was just purgatory.

A favorite author of mine, and with her next book I will be totally caught up on this series.  I hate coming to the end, forced to wait for another.  Such a funny writer, she usually has me cracking up right through.  So this beginning is a good foreshadowing of her style.

On another subject, I should be wearing yellow and get my friend Jan to paint my face like a honey bee.  I've been pollinating vanilla plants the last few days, hoping that I'm doing it right.  Even though a friend showed me how, still not sure. 

The Color of Tea, for Cook the Books Club

Our current selection for that exclusive online group, known as Cook the Books Club, is The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe.  And, BTW, exclusive meaning only those who love books and food need apply.  We read a recommended book and then post about it with a recipe(s) inspired by our reading.  That's pretty much it.  Someone then judges the entries and a dubious prize is awarded. (A little bird just told me that this time may be an exception.)  Feel free to join in.

This was lovely escapist fiction, and quite an enjoyable read, despite the whole time, just about, my wanting to yell at the heroine, Grace, to just wake up and smell the roses, or something to that effect.  You have to love a book that involves your emotions.  However, when a person is caught up in an obsession there is really not much anyone can say or do.  Well, certainly not from the distance of readership.

Okay, she really, really, really wants a baby.  It is not happening. That is her conundrum.   On the way to waking up, she nearly loses what she does have, a very understanding, decent husband, who loves her. 

Happily, Tunnicliffe brings our girl along to the place every character needs to go, development and maturity.  I almost lost it for a bit there.  But continued reading.  Yes, a story of renewal, growth, friendship, and the bold, even brave adventure of opening a tea shop in Macau, of all places.  Grace changes her focus in the very nick of time.

The main food group dealt with in this book, aside from tea, was macarons.  For some folks, these little French confections come close to being an obsession.  (So she had two).  I am just surprised that the main characters' teeth didn't all fall out by the end of the story, at the rate everyone was consuming those macarons.  Which are mostly composed of sugar.  Good though sweet, as you might guess. 

Personal Beef Wellingtons for Daring Kitchen

Another of the Daring Kitchen challenges that sent me out preparing a meal which would otherwise never make it to our table.  Well, I have made Empanadas, or meat pies, but this is a few steps more complicated.

The lovely Monkey Queen of, Don’t Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our May Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to dive into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute and to bring our kids into the challenge by encouraging them to create their own en Croute recipes!

I limit myself by refusing to buy hormone and anti-biotic inflicted beef.  In Hawaii, though we do have several large ranches raising grass fed cattle, the challenge is to find the cut one wants in a store. Something tells me that all the fine hotels here are sucking up quite a bit of loose meat, fish and produce.  Not able to locate a center cut, 3 lb. tenderloin, I opted for the individual portion version of Wellington.  So, on a gourmet level or two up from Pigs in Blankets or Personal Pan Pizza, I give you Mini Beef Wellingtons.

The first part of the job is to prepare crepes.  Luckily, something I do on a regular basis.  One of my very favorite breakfasts.  And there are usually some left.  Perfect for this dish.  So, Sunday morning crepes and Beef Wellington for dinner.  I don't think my husband realizes just how lucky he is.

Peanut Butter Cream Scones

Sometimes my cooking adventures turn out to be an object lesson.  To me at least.  A few weeks ago I had the urge to make some peanut butter scones, because they would go so well with jelly, of course.  And, after searching for a recipe, settled on one that sounded pretty yummy.  With oats and chocolate chips, buttermilk, etc.  There were a lot of things I don't usually add to scones.  They inspired me to make even more changes.  Result: not the best.  Crumbly, fiddly to make.

So, this morning I decided to go back to my usual cream scone recipe, and just sub out peanut butter for the butter.  Cut it in as though we were cutting in butter, add the cream, and pat it out.  Yea!  A keeper.  And, because I'm so nice, I'm sharing with you.  And, don't you know, they are totally low calorie?  :)

Stuffed Beef Rolls with Prosciutto and Artichoke

I've just finished another great Donna Leon mystery, A Sea of Troubles, and was inspired to fix one of the tempting dishes that Paola made for her family.  Those lucky folks.

When the series hero, Commissario Brunetti, investigates the murder of two local fishermen on the island of Pellestrina, the small community closes ranks, forcing him to accept Signorina Elettra's (his boss's secretary) offer to visit her relatives there, to search for clues.  No end of clues and life threatening danger, solved nicely by our intrepid investigator. The dish that caught my fancy was a version of one of my favorites, Involtini Florentine, made with flank steak, and of course with a spinach stuffing.  This one, Involtini di Vitello o Manzo con Carciofi, or Beef Rolls stuffed with artichokes and prosciutto.  I cheated? and used  fancy bottled artichokes, all nicely prepared.  Just had to rinse, quarter and sprinkle them with lemon juice. Happily, my Italian Slow and Savory cookbook, by Joyce Goldstein, had the recipe, which I followed, for a change, as given.  With the exception of the artichoke shortcut mentioned above.  The filling is so yummy, with tender artichoke hearts, prosciutto, garlic and parsley, not to mention a savory sauce, beef stock reduced, and enhanced with cream at the end, which I served over spiral pasta.  A truly delicious meal.