The Book: Cuba Cocina! (1994)

My three years in Miami allowed me plenty of time to sample the wonders of Cuban cuisine–ropa vieja, picadillo, caldo gallego, pressed sandwiches like the medianoche. Nothing charmed me more, though, than pastelitos, the flaky, ubiquitous turnovers (sweet or savory) served at every Cuban coffee joint in town.

And the best of the pastelitos, by far, were guava filled.

Guava makes me happy. It tastes of sun and citrus and tropics. Tart and red, it sings at dessert. Except when subjected to the dessert found on page 227 of Cuba Cocina. This recipe, for Capricho Habañero (Havana Whim), was yet another dish discovered during our Three Cubed adventures that, despite the potential promised by its ingredients (homemade caramel custard, meringue  and guava) looked off on paper. And it was in practice.

Basically the capricho is a strata. But the tiers of bread, covered with guava jam and custard, only makes a brief trip through the oven–to brown the meringue on top. The result is layers of stuff that do not meld, remaining in their constituent parts. And bread soaked in custard, no matter how good the custard, is still bread.

I was tempted to just bake this before topping with meringue. But then I would not have been following the recipe. And while I am kind of inclined to try it that way — or to make a caramel-guava bread pudding (!) — I think I would rather stick to perfect, flaky, triangle-shaped pastelitos.

The bierock’s modest ingredients and homey appearance belie how tasty it is, especially with a dab of horseradish sauce on every bite. The basic yeast dough, enriched with butter and eggs, folds around the three- to four-ingredient filling (if you stick to tradition). Baked to a golden brown, brushed with melted butter, a bierock straight out of the oven reveals steamy deliciousness.  And it is a heck of a lot better than delivery pizza at any party.

Walnut cookies cross cultural barriers. Mexico has polvorones. Delicious and powdered sugar covered, these delicate wedding cookies are associated with our southern neighbor, but originated in the Arab world and traveled to the Western Hemisphere via Spain. Eastern Europe–I am thinking Poland and Czech Republic here, but I suspect they are widely Slavic–trot out the walnut-shaped cookies at Christmas.

Walnut cookies are as versatile as they are delicious. They can be rolled in balls or flattened like a traditional cookie. Or they can be cooked in molds, made fancy when the two halves are cemented together with icing or melted jam… or, when in my hands, with chocolate ganache.

In the United States, New Orleans has made King Cake synonymous with Mardi Gras. Named for the visit of the three Magi to the newborn Christ child, the cake comes in so many variations that one needs a few weeks just to fully enjoy them all. It can take the shape of a cinnamon-scented ring of bread sparsely dotted with candied fruit (Spain and Latin America) or an almond-paste-filled circle of layered puff pastry (France). One commonality is a buried trinket–a plastic or ceramic baby figurine or a dried bean to symbolize the infant Jesus–which bestows various honors upon the person who gets the item in her or his slice. Mexico, where I first encountered the bread, has my favorite tradition: The person who wins the baby has to make tamales for everyone on Candlemas, February 2.

Mexico’s cake, rosca de reyes, is a vaguely sweet yeast bread (akin to pan de muerto), formed into a ring and finished with a sugar topping that may also include candied fruit and/or nuts. It is tasty–and lovely with a cup of coffee for breakfast. However, I like my desserts sweeter and have long been drawn to the French version (galette des rois) and its layers of sweet almond filling.

So I pulled together a hybrid to celebrate Día de Reyes, a basic sweet dough filled with a rough almond paste, rolled like cinnamon rolls, shaped and baked into a ring, and glazed when cool with almond icing. I just might call it a rosca des rois.

I have to say, though, that I may have hit a new high point on Christmas when, in honor of the season–and to satisfy my obsession for beets–I concocted this bright red bowl of joy. Served with pull-apart garlic bread, this was definitely celebratory. And probably good for us, too.

Years ago, at a birthday party in Cornwall, the hostess decided Tessa should not go cake-free for the evening. She whipped up this tangy, delicious almond and clementine confection especially for her–and a tradition was born.

“In the U.K., clementines and tangerines are very much part of Christmas, and the combination of sweet oranges and almonds are a good gluten-free alternative to Christmas Cake (aka, fruit cake),”  says Tessa, who capped her holiday dinner in D.C. this year with this easy dessert.

I learned a lot working there… mostly tricks to improve efficiency, a must in a small space with several moving people and a hot appliance in the middle of it all.

I was reminded this week of one of those tricks after I toted piles of Christmas cookies into the office. First, I heard people marvel that I took all that time to bake cookies. (“They’re such a pain.”) Next, they wanted to know how I got them all perfect, e.g., all round and the same size.

Now, I do not believe for a second that cookies are a chore. On the contrary, they are a zen joy to me, all process-based chemistry with quiet fulfillment at the end. I will admit, though, that several actions can make the baking all the more simple–and lead to more satisfying (visual) results.

So my Christmas gift to you–in addition to recipes for my favorite ginger snaps, a chewy coconut-pecan bar and the sublime no-roll sugar cookies that we produced every morning at the bakery–are these three tips:

1. Always chill the dough. Even half an hour will help cookies keep their shape, make them easier to form and let them rise rather than run. This is especially true if you have a hot kitchen.

2. For drop cookies, use a small ice cream scoop with a release band that sweeps the bowl of the scoop. Just dip, scrape against the bowl to flatten the bottom and drop the cookie onto the sheet. No fuss, no muss. And the cookies will exit the oven all the same size. 

3. Do not overbake. Unless your oven temperture is wildly off, bake no more than the time range advised by the recipe. They will still cook a little once out of the oven, and you do not want them over dry. Or burnt (unless you are my dad…).

Happy Holidays!

Cochinita Pibil (recipe in “Hog Days of Summer”)

It’s not the end of the world. But the Mayan calendar winding down on one cycle and hearalding a new age is as good an excuse as any to celebrate the glorious food of the Yucatan. On December 21, I’m going to dust off the slow cooker for an all-day roast of cochinita pibil, which I’ll serve that evening with the traditional condiment of pickled red onions. Am still mulling over the rest of the menu, but it wouldn’t be a Mayan meal without avocados, black beans and salsa verde. Throw in a cocktail (with mezcal?) and dessert (Mexican chocolate bread pudding?) and we’ll be set.

Here’s the menu:

• Squash on Toast.  Amelia took this a step higher by making her own baguettes.
• Crab and Artichoke Dip
• Roast Turkey with Chipotle and Apple
• Chestnut and Tart Apple Dressing
• Potato-Tomatillo Gratin. A cooking class two days before Thanksgiving, and taught by the charming Eliza Gonzalez, inspired this dish. We took the potato filling from stuffed jalapenos – combining potatoes, garlic, tomatillos and ricotta cheese — and turned it into a gratin for the table (and potato pancakes the next day).
• Braised Cabbage, with apples and clove.
• Roasted Beets with Garlic and Cream.
• Bread Sauce, another British Christmas favorite that was new to the table, a simple sauce heady with clove.
• Cranberry Salsa with Chilies and Cilantro.
• Green Bean Casserole. Yup, the delicious, old-school dish we know from childhood, complete with crispy canned onions on top.
• Little Balls of Happiness (Julia Child’s Oignons Glacés a Blanc).
• Mocha-Pecan Pie, now our gang’s traditional dessert.
• Apple Tart. Listening to an NPR special on Julia Child gave us the idea to make an apple tart with souped-up apple flavor. She put fresh apples on homemade applesauce. We laid them over apple butter and brushed them with apple jelly. A tasting of the Genepi liqueur brought from a friend’s home region in France provide the inspiration for a glaze touched with that herbal Alpine liqueur.
• Cranberry and Pear Hand Pies with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.