Onion Rolls

Early in our relationship, M and I had a pretty good Saturday morning routine. We'd walk to the Urbana Farmers Market nice and early. There, we'd load up on organic produce, then head over to Mirabelle and load up on pastry.

Mirabelle makes excellent pastries and breads, sweet and savory. One of my regular indulgences was their onion roll. It's a slightly sweet yeast dough rolled around sweet cooked onions, tangy cream, and crunchy poppy seeds.

We haven't lived in Urbana for years, and I've only seen the onion rolls at Mirabelle. With the onions, cream, and poppy seeds, it definitely has an Eastern European flavor to it, which isn't in abundance in Austin.

I thought of the onion rolls a few days ago, and I had to have one, so I took a shot at a recipe.

I made a no-knead pizza dough recipe, which has turned out to be pretty versatile. Then we spread the rolled-out dough with Full Quiver Farms neufchatel cheese and sprinkled on sauteed onions and poppy seeds and rolled it up cinnamon-roll style. (We made another roll with sauteed apple, crystallized ginger, and brown sugar.)

Then we sliced the rolls and let them rise before baking until golden brown with some melted butter brushed over the tops.

The rolls were perfect. The dough was browned on the outside and nicely fluffy and chewy on the inside. The onion filling was creamy, sweet, and satisfyingly poppy.

Onion Rolls
This is a full recipe for onion rolls, though I made half onion, half apple. For the apple-ginger filling, halve the filling ingredients for the onion rolls and substitute with 1 chopped and sauteed tart apple,  2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger, and 3 tablespoons brown sugar.

Dough for 1 pizza
2 tablespoons safflower (or other vegetable) oil
2 large onions, sliced
8 ounces neufchatel
1/4 cup poppy seeds
3 tablespoons butter, melted (optional)

Heat the oil in a large saute pan over low heat. Add the onions and cook until very soft, but not browned. This can take 10 to 15 minutes. Set the onions aside to cool.

Roll the dough into a large rectangle. Spread the neufchatel on the dough, going all the way to the edges. Sprinkle the onions and poppy seeds over the cheese. Roll up the dough like a cinnamon roll, starting with one of the long sides of the rectangle. Place seam-side down and cut into 1.5-inch sections.

Preheat the oven to 375. Place the rolls on their sides, almost touching, in a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rise for 30 minutes. Remove the towel, brush the melted butter on the tops of the rolls (if using), and bake until golden brown, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Fried Tofu

 

We eat a lot of tofu in this house. I'm a big fan of the stuff, cooked or uncooked, and I love the texture that frying imparts to tofu.

But I have an aversion to deep-frying, for a few reasons:

1. Deep-frying is scary. Hot oil can burn skin pretty easily, and it can splatter and splutter everywhere, making a mess.
2. It's expensive. We try to cook with good oils, and it feels wasteful to use quarts of oil to cook one dish. 
3. If the temperature's not right, your food can get greasy. Who wants that?

So we panfry. Panfrying also gives the tofu a nicely chewy exterior, and it uses much less oil than deep-frying does. It can still splutter, especially if the tofu goes into the pan wet, but it's not too bad.

Fried Tofu
1 tablespoon sunflower or safflower oil
1 block extra-firm tofu, chopped however you want it in your finished dish

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the tofu to the pan in a single layer and cook, without stirring, for a few minutes, until the underside turns golden brown. Stir with a heatproof spatula and cook some  more, stirring occasionally, until the cubes are mostly browned on all sides. This can take about 10 minutes. Sometimes a side or two of the tofu doesn't get browned, but it's not really a big deal.

Serve with any sauce, or add to a dish like a stir-fry or stew.

Oven-Roasted Broccoli

 

We watched an old episode of Good Eats the other day. The show focused on broccoli, one of my favorite vegetables.

Broccoli season has arrived in Austin, and I got a huge two-pound crown from Harvest Time Farm Stand at the farmers market on Saturday morning.

Alton Brown's recipe for  Oven Roasted Broccoli looked wonderful. I roast broccoli a lot at home, and we usually eat it dressed with just olive oil, salt, and chili flakes. This recipe has toasted bread crumbs and cheese, making it heartier and good for the cold snap that just came in.

I made the recipe with a few modifications. There was no panko in our pantry, so I made fresh bread crumbs in the food processor and toasted them in the oven. I also added lemon zest and juice to the finished recipe. Then each bowl got topped with a fried egg and a few roasted tomatoes.

It turned out really well. The broccoli was still a bit crunchy, and the bread crumbs and cheese gave it a deep nutty flavor. The original recipe calls for either Cheddar or Parmesan. I used Cheddar, but I think I'll try Parmesan next time. The Cheddar, while delicious, didn't get distributed evenly in the broccoli, gathering in chunks. Don't get me wrong; the clumps were salty, crunchy, and delicious. But I think the Parmesan may coat the broccoli more evenly.

Fall-Time Escabeche

I love all kinds of pickled vegetables. And with all the great produce we get in Austin, I find myself making pickles pretty regularly.

Growing up, I ate a lot of Mexican food at a little neighborhood taqueria in Chicago. The place, called La Fiesta, is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (and has been for as long as I can remember).

When you sit down there, nice ladies bring out a basket of chips with a bowl of salsa and a bowl of escabeche, a spicy and sour jalapeno and carrot pickle. A few other places in the neighborhood put in other vegetables, like cauliflower, but I always chose La Fiesta because of their spicier version, as well as their giant burritos (which NEVER have rice in them).

And in Austin, this is the season when carrots and jalapenos are ripe at the same time. And because cauliflower and onions are also in season here, I put those in too.

First, I chopped all the vegetables up. I could only get tiny carrots at the market, but they were sweet and tender.

 

Then I sauteed them in a little bit of olive oil. I got a couple of jars together and put a few peppercorns, a few coriander seeds, and a little bit of dried oregano in each one. (Normally, I'd add a bay leaf or two to each jar, but I was out.)

I made a brine with water, vinegar, and salt and heated it to dissolve the salt. Then I packed the veggies into the jars, covered them with the brine, and slapped a couple of lids on them. When they were cool, I stuck them in the fridge, where they'd start curing.

 

I'll find out in a couple of days how it went. The hardest part is waiting. For the flavors to really come together, it takes at least a few days, but really, it's better after a week or so. It's got to be refrigerated, since the jars are unprocessed, but they seem to keep for a few months. I have a jar in the fridge from earlier in the season (sans cauliflower), and it's really delicious.

Escabeche
This is more of a guideline. You can use whatever vegetables are available, and flavor the brine with different spices. But for me, it always has to have at least carrots and jalapenos.

4 cups bite-size vegetables 
3 to 4 jalapenos, sliced into rings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar (I used mostly cider vinegar, with a little bit of white vinegar.)
1 heaping teaspoon kosher salt
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon oregano

Saute the veggies and jalapenos in the olive until just beginning to become tender, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the water, vinegar, and salt, stirring until the salt dissolves.

Divide the bay leaves, peppercorns, coriander seeds, and oregano between 2 pint-size jars. Pack the vegetables into the jars and pour the brine over. Cover the jars with lids and allow to cool to room temperature. Let it sit in the fridge for at least a few days before eating. They should last a few months, but they usually get eaten much quicker.

Bouldin Brunch

 

Last weekend, we went to Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse for brunch. It's a place we go to a lot. It's in the neighborhood, the food is really good (plus pretty healthy and all vegetarian), and the staff are nice.

We usually go for dinner, and tend not to even try brunch. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, the place can get pretty crowded. But we decided to chance it, and walked on over. The host told us we'd have to wait about 20 minutes, and we decided that'd be okay. It would have taken us at least that long to walk back to the house, get the car, and drive somewhere else.

So we got one of those goofy little buzzer things and went outside. Our table was ready in about 5 minutes, which was a really nice surprise.

We got the special, which was biscuits and gravy, and a tofu-broccoli salad. The salad is something I get pretty often.

Biscuits and gravy

Tofu and broccoli salad

The biscuits and gravy were really satisfying. The biscuits were light, and the mushroom gravy was rich and savory. The salad was great. I love the salty, sesame-flavored broccoli that's cooked but still nice and crisp. They also put on a ton of sunflower sprouts, which are really fresh and nutty. And the garlic-tahini dressing is earthy and comforting.

To drink, I tried the Kool Keith, made from two shots of espresso and chocolate syrup, over ice. The drink was served in a pint glass, making it much bigger than I expected, but it was sweet and refreshing. And caffeinated.

We'll still be back for dinner probably a lot sooner than we'll be back in for brunch, but I would definitely try it again.

Micheladas at Hotel San Jose

We've been experiencing a little cold snap here, with morning temperatures around 40 degrees. It sort of broke today. Well, it was still 40 degrees in the morning, but it got up to almost 80 this evening. The weather is weird here.

Last Thursday, I saw that the chilly weather was on its way, so I took my sweetie out for a drink at the patio bar at the Hotel San Jose.

Hotel San Jose is on South Congress, and the bar is in a little quiet courtyard next to the pool. The atmosphere outside is relaxed and chic. Tucked away from the noisy avenue, it's slightly secluded and feels fancy.

It's great to sit along the perimeter under the grapevines that canopy some of the tables and people watch (and pooch watch on the dog-friendly patio).

We've never been inside the hotel, but it looks really nice. And kind of expensive.

We each ordered a michelada, a salty-spicy beer cocktail. The San Jose's michelada is delicious, with lots of fresh lime juice and cracked black pepper.When you order one, a glass arrives with ice and the michelada mix, which you pour the beer into.

Salty and spicy

Served over ice, it's an excellent drink for a warm summer (or fall) evening. And at $4 for a michelada made with Modelo, it's not extravagant, even at the semi-swanky hotel.

Passion Vine

When I was in Peru this February, I ate a lot of granadillas, a kind of passion fruit. The flavor was so sweet, floral, and tropical, I knew I'd miss them when I got back home. And because a single passion fruit can cost at least four bucks at the grocery store (when you can get them for about a fifty cents a pound in Lima), I definitely didn't want to buy them.

I found a Texas Maypop plant at the Great Outdoors here in Austin. The Maypop is a native Texas variety, named because they pop loudly when stepped on.

I planted the vine, which was pretty small, in the backyard in early March and trained it on a tomato cage. Now in October, the vine has really filled out. It sends our shoots that can grow a couple of feet in a single day.

And the flowers it produces are gorgeous. They're big and weird, with purple and green petals and something that looks like an alien popping right out of the middle.

Crazy alien flower

A couple of weeks ago, I went outside to tuck the new tendrils behind the wires of the tomato cage, and I was shocked to see a fruit. I'm not sure if it's going to taste good, or if it's going to produce more than just the one, but I can't wait to see what happens.

First Maypop