COOKBOOKS WITH PANACHE Big Sky Cooking By Meredith Brokaw and Ellen Wright
The appealing
food and lifestyle of the American West is vividly brought
to life in the beautifully conceived Big Sky Cooking (Artisan,
$35).
Authors Meredith Brokaw and Ellen Wright intersperse
20 menus for easy entertaining with wonderful essays reflecting
on Montana ranch life written by some of America’s
best authors.
STETSON
SALAD SERVES 8 TO 10
This is a dish that can meet the needs of a few people
or a crowd. It’s named after a pottery company
called Stetson and has nothing to do with the cowboy
hat, although it does look like a Western wagon wheel.
The salad is served on a round plate of wedge-shape
sections filled with healthy ingredients such as shredded
chicken, spinach, roasted corn, cheese, and currants,
topped off with an aioli and pesto dressing. All in
all, it’s an unusual salad and a winner. One
of the ingredients, quinoa, pronounced “keen-wah,”
is a grain native to South America, related to spinach
and Swiss chard. It’s high in nutrients, especially
iron and protein.
THE SALAD
4 cups
cooked quinoa (from 2 cups uncooked)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
breast
2 cups dried roasted corn
(such as JustCorn)
1 cup grated Asiago cheese
1 cup salted roasted pumpkin
seeds
1 cup dried currants
1 ½ cups chopped tomatoes
2 cups chopped spinach or
arugula
THE DRESSING
2 small
shallots, diced
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup Easy Aioli (recipe follows)
½ cup pesto, store-bought
or homemade (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed
lemon juice
½ teaspoon freshly
ground black pepper
Make
a bed of quinoa on a large round shallow serving plate.
Arrange the chicken, corn, cheese, pumpkin seeds,
currants, tomatoes, and spinach on top of the quinoa
in 7 wedge-shape sections.
To make the dressing: In a medium bowl, combine the
shallots, buttermilk, aioli, pesto, lemon juice, and
pepper. You will have approximately 3 cups.
Serve the dressing in a pitcher for your guests to
drizzle on their salad. Reserve the remaining dressing
in a glass jar, refrigerated, for other salads.
EASY AIOLI
MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP
¾
cup olive oil
¼
cup chopped garlic
1
teaspoon kosher salt
Combine the olive oil, garlic, and salt in a small
bowl. Refrigerate, covered, for up to 1 week.
PESTO
MAKES ABOUT ¼ CUP
½
cup olive oil
¼
cup fresh basil leaves
1
tablespoon pine nuts
1
teaspoon kosher salt
In
the bowl of a food processor, pulse the olive oil,
basil, pine nuts, and salt until combined. Refrigerate,
covered, for 2 or 3 days.
STRAWBERRY
FOOL SERVES 6 TO 8
“Fool” seems just right for the
insanity of a Runamuck week. It’s actually
the name of a classic frothy English dessert
made with mashed fresh berries folded into whipped
cream. You can make raspberry, peach, nectarine,
kiwi, or any kind of fruit fool the same way.
Serve it with Icebox Sugar Cookies.
3 cups fresh strawberries,
washed
and hulled
(frozen
strawberries can be substituted)
½ cup sugar
1 ½ tablespoons
freshly squeezed lemon
juice
1 ½ teaspoons
unflavored gelatin powder
(from 1 envelope)
1 cup heavy cream, well
chilled
Set aside a few perfect strawberries to use
as garnish. In the bowl of a food processor,
add the remaining strawberries, the sugar, and
lemon juice and process until pureed. Transfer
the mixture to a medium saucepan and sprinkle
the gelatin on top. Let stand until the gelatin
dissolves, about 15 minutes.
Place the saucepan over low heat and heat until
warmed, 2 to 3 minutes. Refrigerate in a large
bowl, covered, for at least 2 hours or overnight.
When nearly ready to serve, whip the cream in
the medium bowl of an electric mixer until stiff
peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the
chilled strawberry mixture. Refrigerate for
at least 30 minutes.
To serve, spoon the fool into parfait glasses
or wineglasses and garnish with the reserved
strawberries.
ICEBOX
SUGAR COOKIES
MAKES 4 TO 5 DOZEN 2-INCH
COOKIES
Our
grandmothers remember the days when a deliveryman
would drive through the neighborhood placing
blocks of ice in the bottoms of families’
iceboxes. These old-fashioned cookies got their
name long ago when cooks would prepare cookie
dough in advance, shape it into a log, and store
it in the icebox. Then, it was easy to slice
and bake small amounts. Keep some dough in your
“icebox” and use it anytime you
get the yen.
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted
butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of kosher salt
In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, cream
the butter and 1 ½ cups sugar until light
and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs, one
at a time, and beat well. Stir in the vanilla.
Add the flour and salt and mix well.
Divide the dough into 3 parts. With your hands,
roll each piece into a 3-inch-diameter log.
Wrap the logs tightly with plastic wrap, then
with aluminum foil, store in the refrigerator
(icebox) or freezer until ready to bake.
Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Remove a log of cookie dough from the refrigerator
or freezer and cut it into ¼-to ½-inch
slices. Place the remaining ½ cup sugar
on a plate. Dip one side of each cookie in the
sugar and place the cookie, sugar side up, on
a cookie sheet.
Bake the cookies until lightly browned, 20 to
25 minutes, depending on the thickness of the
slices. Remove the cookies from the sheet while
still warm and cool on rack.
