Due to my ever-widening enthusiasm for breadmaking, I have become a close follower of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge, wherein a group of bakers bakes its way through Peter Reinhart’s revered opus and blogs about the results, with numerous details and step-by-step photos. This makes for fascinating posts if you’re into that sort of thing, and reading about others’ well-documented hurdles and triumphs is most helpful if you want to bake from the book.

And this is how I was inspired to try Reinhart’s recipe for English muffins, with a view to adjusting it later and make use of my sourdough starter to get sourdough English muffins.

If you’ve never really stopped to consider how English muffins are made — and I wouldn’t hold it against you — you may be interested to learn that they simply grow on English muffin trees. No, really, however easily I could picture that to be true*, English muffins are in fact little loaves of bread dough that are cooked on the stove like pancakes, rather than baked in the oven, which explains (aha!) the two flattened, browned faces.

English muffins are in fact little loaves of bread dough that are cooked on the stove like pancakes, rather than baked in the oven, which explains (aha!) the two flattened, browned faces.

The difficulty of this method is that you need to time the cooking precisely: long enough that the muffins are cooked all the way through to the center (to preclude any gumminess of crumb), but not so long that the surface of the muffins get too dark. Peter Reinhart offers a simple solution: he has you brown the muffins on a griddle or skillet first, and then finish them in the oven, where they will continue to bake through without coloring any further.

My first attempt was a qualified success: the dough came together nicely, but I got a little carried away when preheating my dear cast-iron skillet** — c’mon, let’s fire up that baby! — and I burned a good half of the muffins. We still ate them, slicing off the offending charcoal layer, and they were pretty good, but I felt the taste of the yeast came through a bit too strongly.

For my second attempt, I modified the recipe to incorporate some of my natural starter (have you met Philémon?) for sourdough English muffins with a more complex flavor. Although my preference would be to use my starter as the only leavener, I used both starter and commercial yeast here (albeit in a smaller amount than in the original recipe), a necessary compromise when working with an enriched dough: the starter would not be quite strong enough to lift it on its own in a reasonable amount of time.

Take two of the sourdough English muffin project turned out fantastically well: the flavor was better developed, thanks to the longer fermentation and the use of the starter, and I cooked them more gently this time, making the cornmeal-dotted surfaces golden brown and crusty just so.

You can certainly eat the muffins when freshly baked, but I personally prefer them toasted, and I have found that the texture and flavor improves over time, so that you can absolutely bake them the day before you want to eat them (for breakfast or tea), and continue to enjoy them over the next few days. I’m sure they’d freeze perfectly, too.

The final thing you need to know about homemade muffins is that they should be fork-split to achieve optimal texture. Just prick the muffin all around its girth with the tines of a fork, then pull the two halves apart gently; you’ll get a nicely craggy surface that will take splendidly to toasting and liberal buttering. (Of course, there’s also a gadget for that.)

* If there is such a thing as a breadfruit, why not an English muffin tree?

** I have now acquired a spiffy laser thermometer that should preclude that sort of problem in the future.

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I say, one can never have too many recipes for lamb shoulder. A versatile cut, the lamb shoulder, one that can be grilled, stewed, braised, or here, slow-roasted.

This dish was born out of a typical moment of greenmarket frustration, which I shall get off my chest just now.

A few Saturdays ago, I was waiting in line before my organic butcher‘s stall. Immediately ahead of me was a stocky little lady, whose many years of experience had taught her how to maximize the annoyance of the person behind her, i.e. me, through the cunning use of her shopping trolley.

Never one to let a stocky little lady defeat me, I outmaneuvered her by gliding her trolley forward with my right foot, slowly but surely, every time her back was turned.

Her technique was this: when the line moved forward, she followed, but neglected, for as long as she could possibly hold fort, to pull her trolley along with her, thus blocking the progress of the other customers, and preventing them from getting a comfortable look at the day’s offerings — a dire handicap on a busy market morning, when one is required to place one’s order with great velocity.

Never one to let a stocky little lady defeat me — she was half my height after all, though she may prove quite the cannonball in a fight — I outmaneuvered her by gliding her trolley forward with my right foot, slowly but surely, every time her back was turned.

And yet the final victory, it pains me to admit, was hers.

When her turn came, she ordered two links of blood sausage, a hefty slice of headcheese, and six pork chops. And then, as an afterthought, she pointed to the handsome shoulder of lamb that was sitting, all alone, in the lamb shoulder tray. My heart sank. This was, of course, what I had been coveting all along, and mine was the voice of last resorts when I uttered a half-joking, half-serious, might-as-well-give-it-a-shot, “Aw, that’s too bad, I had my eye on this one, too!”

Needless to say, she barely registered my comment*, and I swear I saw the shadow of a smirk as she grabbed her trolley and stomped away.

I ended up buying collier d’agneau (neck of lamb), which turned out fine braised with carrots and sweet potatoes, but a few days later, as I was planning the menu for an upcoming dinner party, this unresolved lamb shoulder situation floated back to the surface of my mind. I picked up the phone, dialed the number printed on the butcher’s wrapping paper, and asked if he would please set aside a shoulder of lamb for me the following Saturday.

He did, and it is with a titillating sense of revenge — ha! who’s smirking now? — that I massaged the meat with a paste made of fresh rosemary from Muriel‘s garden, anchovies, pink garlic, mustard seeds, and lemon peel. Garlic cloves en chemise** and a few late-harvest tomatoes were slipped into the baking dish, and the whole thing was popped into a low oven to roast for several hours, until the meat was nicely browned, crusty, and infused with the tangy seasoning paste.

This I served with a simple side of Italian-grown farro, a.k.a. emmer wheat or triticum dicoccum, the ancient grain that fed the Roman legions: it needs a few hours of soaking and forty minutes of cooking (preferably in homemade stock), but it cooks to a gratifying chew, it is nutritious as can be, and a nice change from the usual starch suspects.

* In case you’re wondering, yes, this strategy works every once in a while. Admittedly, I have better success if my opponent is a man, whose chivalry may lead to him letting me have the last piccola baguette, or whatever it is I hope to get.

** Ail en chemise = unpeeled garlic cloves; literally, “with their shirt on.” Isn’t it the most pictorial way to put it?

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Fig season is upon us and produce stalls boast plentiful trays of purple figs, soft at the hips and oft leaking a drop of sap from their, um, bottom. Of course, they cost an eye — figs are a luxury in Paris any time of the year — but the fig fanatic in me is willing to make any sort of monetary sacrifice to fuel my addiction.

But, lo and behold, my supermarket was offering an all-things-considered good price on Solliès figs the other day, and it was just the excuse I needed to make fig ice cream for a dinner party we were hosting.

Because I wasn’t entirely sure how my figs rated on the flavor scale — I tasted one and gave it a 6, but statisticians may agree that a sample of one fig isn’t enough to draw any sort of conclusion regarding the entire population — I decided to take an insurance policy by throwing in a few dried figs, to sustain the overall flavor.

Many a blogger has been heard raving about the fig ice cream in the ice cream guru‘s book, and I myself used the recipe as a guide, modifying it to include dried figs, and use Greek-style yogurt in place of cream, and Limoncello instead of lemon juice*.

And well, you may now count me among those who can serenade all night about the unctuosity and vividness of this ice cream — a little bit like my neighbor from across the courtyard, who I wish would either shut her window or sing something other than Natalie Imbruglia. Karaoke: it’s not for everyone.

And before we part, I will add this: when I first looked at the picture of this ice cream in David’s book, I knit my brow and puckered my lips into a dubitative pout (please take a moment to picture this). Could fig ice cream turn out this purple? But now that I’ve made it myself — and I promise I did not fiddle with the colors in the picture above — I’m here to tell you that, yes, fig ice cream can turn out this purple. Or more accurately in my case, pinkish purple, the kind of ice cream you wouldn’t mind smearing all over your white shirt, so lovely the color is.

* David Lebovitz explains that a little alcohol helps ice cream remain soft.

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When I recovered my kitchen after seven weeks (seven! weeks!) of renovation chaos — and this was just to redo the bathroom, mind you — the very first thing I made was a yogurt cake, to fortify us through our next mission: the meticulous cleaning of, well, the entire contents of our apartment, which we had ill-protected from the dust storm. (Never again will we underestimate plaster and tile.)

And as soon as our home regained a sense of cleanliness and harmony, I was able to pick up my cooking life where I’d left it seven weeks (seven! weeks!) earlier, and — oh, the bliss — return to the Batignolles farmers’ market. “Where have you been all summer?” my produce vendor asked, as I went on a bit of a vegetable shopping spree.

I rode home on a cloud, unloaded my baskets into my squeaky-clean vegetable drawers (I’d also scoured the fridge while I was at it), and started to plot ways to use my loot. Of particular concern to me were the fist-sized eggplants I had fallen for, so shiny you could use them as pocket mirrors (handy when the contractor has yet to afix the mirror above the bathroom sink).

You see, I am hopeless with eggplant. The only way eggplants and I get along is when I reaffirm my authority by roasting the living daylight out of them. I usually go on to make my neighbor Stephan’s eggplant caviar, the recipe for which is featured in my first book, but I was in the mood to try something a little different this time.

Coincidentally, I had just received a review copy of Janna Gur’s Book of New Israeli Food, an enticing book that’s as much about the food as it is about the people and daily life of Israel. And on page 28, the author quotes an Arab adage that made me laugh: “If your future bride can’t prepare eggplant fifty different ways — don’t marry her,” it says.

Janna Gur goes on to give about a dozen, which is a lot more than most cooks have in their repertoire, I daresay, yet still leaves them to do a bit more research if they are to be ready when an Arab prince comes to whisk them away.

Among Gur’s suggestions are eight mini-recipes for dips and salads that involve just a few ingredients, and because I had goat’s milk yogurt in the fridge, the one that tempted me most was the Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt. It went something like this, “add 2 cups yogurt to the flesh of 2 roasted eggplants; add crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, and, optionally, chopped mint and coriander leaves.”

I ended up preparing mine a bit differently — see recipe below — and was delighted with the use of yogurt, which gives the dip a rich, creamy texture, yet keeps it light and tangy. Eggplants are scheduled to stick around for just a little while longer before fall begins in earnest, and this is a fine way to bid them farewell.

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