Author Archives: Lee White

A la Carte: Thinking Delicious Dessert? How About Date Walnut Bread with Buttermilk Sorbet?

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This is a difficult time of year for me when I bake. I want fresh rhubarb, strawberries and blueberries (although the last I usually buy frozen because I don’t care for fat, cultivated blurriest, preferring  Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries).

With no fresh fruit, I made two lemon loaf cakes from Ina Garten’s recipe. I took the cakes to meetings and they were eaten in no time.

Loaf pan cakes or breads are easy to make and, unlike most cakes, require no frostings. In addition, once you follow the recipe (flour, sugar, butter, egg and liquid), you can add dried fruit, nuts, coconut or chocolate or cinnamon chips.

I also noticed that I have too many cartons of buttermilk and too many plastic bags of walnuts. So I made the date nut bread along with this delicious buttermilk sorbet. Imagine it as dessert with the date nut cake or the nut bread sliced with cream cheese and pineapple as a tasty lunch.

The sorbet does, however, require an ice cream maker. Buy an inexpensive one, or borrow one from a friend.

Date Walnut Bread

I will double this recipe, make two loaves and use buttermilk instead of regular milk;

2 cups flour
1 tablespoons baking powder
one-half teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (you may use ground if you don’t have fresh)
5 tablespoons light brown sugar
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (I use a small wooden bowl and a mezzaluna)
1 cup chopped pitted dates (I chop them with a little flour so they are not sticky)
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9-inch loaf pan (I use Pam in the blue can).

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add brown sugar and mix. Add nuts and dates and stir together. Beat together egg and milk and add to dry ingredients, along with butter. Blend just enough to moisten the mixture. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until top is cracked and a wooden skewer comes out dry. (I use these wooden skewers instead of toothpicks since the latter are too short to get to the bottom any bread or cake.) Cool slightly and invert onto a wire rack.

Buttermilk Sorbet
(From Martha Stewart Living, February 2000, page 193)

Yield: 1 and one-half  quarts

1 and one and three-quarter  cups sugar
2 cups water
2 cups buttermilk
1 and one-half teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Combine sugar in a medium saucepan with 2 cups water. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves completely, about 10 minutes. Increase heat, and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, combine sugar syrup with buttermilk and vanilla. Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and

Follow manufacturer’s instructions to freeze.

When freezing is complete, transfer sorbet to an airtight container  and place in freezer for at least one hour. Sorbet will keep frozen for up to two weeks.

About the author: Lee White (left), a former resident of Old Lyme, has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976.  She has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day.

A la Carte: So You Want to be Creative With Chicken? Add Chili and Citrus!

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When I was maybe eight- or nine-years-old, if I ever felt a little “nauseous,” or a bit sick to my stomach, I would ask myself if I wanted a bacon, lettuce and tomato (BLT) sandwich. If I didn’t want one, I knew I was sick.

When I was much older, a BLT is still my favorite sandwich and I will make an entire pound of bacon, let it cool on paper towels, then put all of it in a plastic bag and place in the crisper of the refrigerator. That way, when I needed a BLT, I would use nuke three or four slices and keep myself happy.

I don’t make pounds of bacon any more. My preferences these days are tuna, turkey or chicken sandwiches. Tuna I could eat every day but there is that problem with mercury. Instead, I make a roast chicken just so I can have chicken sandwiches for days. So when I saw an entire feature on chicken in the new Bon Appetit, I tried the one below, since I had every single ingredient. It was great and the leftover chicken will be one amazing sandwich.

Chili-and-Citrus-Rubbed Chicken with Potatoes

From Bon Appetit. April 2109, page 81

3 and one-half pound to 4 pound chicken
Kosher or sea salt
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
Zest of 1 small orange and 1 small lemon
One-quarter cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon mild red pepper flakes (like Aleppo-style)
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
Three-quarter cup low-sodium chicken broth (I now use Better Than Bouillon)
One-half cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 pounds medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season generously inside and out with salt. Place on rimmed baking sheet and let sit 1 hour on room temperature.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coarsley grind coriander and fennel seeds in spice mill or with mortar and pestle. Transfer to small bowl and add zests, oil, pepper flakes and paprika; mix well. Pat chicken dry, then rub all over with spiced oil.

Whisk broth, wine and tomato paste in a cast-iron skillet or 3-quart enameled cast-iron baking dish to combine. Place chicken in center and scatter garlic cloves around. Roast chicken, turning halfway through and adding an additional one-quarter cup water, if pan seems dry, until chicken is golden brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of breast registers 155 , 50 to 60 minutes (temperature will climb to 160 degrees as chicken rests). Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, strain liquid left in pan through fine-mesh sieve into a heatproof measuring cup or bowl; discard anything in sieve. Taste, season sauce with salt, if needed. Set aside.

Place potatoes in a large pot and pour in cold water to cover by 1 inch. Add large handful of salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are fork-tender, 25 minutes. Drain and transfer potatoes back into pan.

Cut potatoes into large pieces. Pour reserved sauce over potatoes. Add parsley, season with salt and gently toss to combine. Place chicken on a platter and serve potatoes alongside.

About the author: Lee White (left), a former resident of Old Lyme, has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976.  She has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day.

A la Carte: Whether It’s Easter or Passover in Your Home, Lamb is Always Lovely!

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Boneless rolled leg of lamb always makes a perfect Easter meal — but, as Lee explains, it doesn’t have to be boneless! Photo by Mike Tinnion on Unsplash

It seems lately that Christian and Jewish holidays seems to happen within weeks, or days, of the year.

For those who think that Hanukkah is like a Jewish Christmas, it is not. And Passover is nothing like Christian Easter either. Rather, the Jewish calendar and the Christian calendar (the latter is actually the Gregorian calendar) are not the same. I was born in the Jewish year 5704. I have no intention of telling you how old I am, but if you ask a Jewish person, perhaps that person will tell you how old I am.

More important, both holidays mean that families usually sit down together for dinner. While many of those who make Easter dinner will chose ham as the entrée of choice. Jewish people will not. But both holidays might choose lamb.

In the early 70s, I bought a book about how to cook French dishes in an American kitchen, meaning that we mostly buy our food at American supermarkets. So when you see the recipe calls for Campbell’s beef consommé, that I what I used for decades. If you do, try to get a canned consommé that is low in sodium. I now use More Than Boullion. I have used many of the recipes in that book, but my favorite is the one below.

Sometimes I buy boneless lamb, but the recipe is pretty much the same. I do suggest that you use a meat thermometer and the internal temperature of the roast should be 120 to 125 degrees for medium-rare, or 130 to 135 for medium.

Gigot d/Agneau a l’Ail (Leg of Lamb with Garlic)

From Charles Virion’s French Country Cookbook (Hawthorn, New York, 1972)

Yield: Serves 6 to 8

1 5- to 7-pound leg of lamb
8 cloves of garlic cut lengthwise into slivers
Salt and freshly ground coarse black pepper
Vegetable oil
3 cups brown sauce or canned beef consommé (I use Campbell’s)
2 cups cream sherry (does not have to be Harvey’s Bristol, but it should be cream sherry)
8 small new potatoes
4 tablespoons sweet butter

  1. Take leg of lamb out of refrigerator 3 to 5 hour before cooking time. Meat must always be at room temperature before roasting or broiling.
  2. Insert pieces of garlic all around the leg by making tiny incisions and pushing the garlic underneath. Season meat with salt and pepper. Pour on a little vegetable oil and let meat marinate until ready to roast.
  3. Meanwhile, simmer together stock or consommé and the cream sherry until liquid is reduced by half. This will be your basting sauce and gravy base.
  4. Place the lamb in a roasting pan and roast in a preheated 450 degree oven with the oven ajar. Turn frequently and baste with vegetable oil and fats accumulated during roasting. When the outside is brown and crisp, approximately 45 minutes later, take the meat out of the oven and place it in another roasting pan. Use the pan with the accumulated lamb fat to roast potatoes (separately from the lamb) for 1 to 1 and a half hours.
  5. Put butter on the meat and let it stand until 1 hour before you are ready to eat.
  6. Reduce oven temp to 300 degrees. The lamb should roast slowly now so that it will remain rare and juicy.
  7. Place lamb in oven and turn it every 10 minutes, basting with the stock-sherry sauce. Compute the approximately roasting time by figuring 20 minutes per pound, subscripting the 45 minutes for the first roasting.
  8. When cooked, take the meat out of the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes. This helps keep the meat juices inside. Then slice the meat and arrange on a hot platter.
  9. You should have approximately 2 cups of gravy left. Pour some of it, piping hot, on top of the roast. The rest should be served in a sauceboat. Surround the meat with vegetables (he suggests lima beans) and potatoes which have been roasted in the lamb fat from the first roasting. Serve immediately.

About the author: Lee White (left), a former resident of Old Lyme, has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976.  She has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day.

A la Carte: Hard to Believe, But You Can Make Mac & Cheese Glamorous! Lee Shows us How …

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The perennially popular mac & cheese. Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash.

I don’t remember tasting mac and cheese until I was 14- or 18-years-old. i.e., high school or college cafeterias. Nobody made it in my house. I remember asking for it when I was fairly little, but at my house it was made with cottage cheese, sour cream, maybe butter, cinnamon and egg noodles. Basically, it was unconstructed noodle kugel.

When I was married the first time, I cooked the boxed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. When it was done, I put it into a Corning glass pot, sliced a tomato down the middle and ran some breadcrumbs around the tomatoes. For me, that was cooking and garnishing. Then my-then mother-in-law showed me how to make a white sauce and I made mac and cheese from scratch. (She also showed me how to make pork roast on top of sauerkraut, take it out of the oven, take them apart and add applesauce to the sauerkraut. I still make it the same way. It is delicious.)

Of course, almost everyone loves mac and cheese. As I get older, I take a lactase pill before I eat mac and cheese, as many do these days. And I will make sure I have the ingredients to make all the recipes in this month’s Food Network Magazine, of which the one below is the yummiest.

Glam Mac and Cheese

From Food Network Magazine, March 2019, page 48

Yield: serves 4

12 ounces fusilli
Kosher salt
One-third cup diced pancetta
1 small handful of fresh thyme
3 scallions, thinly sliced
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon mustard powder\
Three-quarters whole milk (2 percent is fine)
1 and one-quarter cups heavy cream
7 ounces dulcelatte or gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (about 1 cup)
4 ounces parmesan cheese, grated (about 1 and one-half cups)
Freshly ground black pepper
One-quarter cup breadcrumbs
1 handful chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water. Cook just less than al dente, as the pasta will be cooked again in the oven. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain pasta, return it to the pot and set aside.

Fry the pancetta in a medium skillet over medium heat until it just starts to brown and crisp up, then add thyme and scallions and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Add the skillet’s contents to the pasta.

For the sauce, put butter, flour, nutmeg and mustard powder in a small saucepan set over medium heat and cook, stirring, until butter has melted. Mix milk and cream together in a pitcher and add a little to the flour and butter in the saucepan, stirring well. Keep adding milk mixture bit by bit, stirring well each time (be sure to get into the “corners”of  the pan, as flour often lurks there). Once the sauce has fully come together, turn up the heat and boil for a minute or two. The sauce will thicken. Remove pan from the heat.

Add two-thirds of both the cheeses to the sauce while it is still hot and combine well. (It may be a bit lumpy, that is fine.) Season to taste with salt and pepper and add to the pasta mix. If the cheese sauce thickens too much, add some of the pasta water. Stir everything together and spoon into 4 large ramekins in a shallow 3-quart casserole.

Sprinkle the top with the rest of the cheese and the breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese starts to bubble and the topping goes brown. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

About the author: Lee White (left), a former resident of Old Lyme, has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976.  She has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day. 

A la Carte: Best (Recipe) of 2018’s Best … Says Lee

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Many, many years ago, I did a radio show with Johnny London on WICH out of Norwich, Connecticut. We began with an hour and, after the first year, it turned into two hours. 

I grew up with radio, although my parents did get a television in 1948. But we had radios everywhere in our house—we had clock radios, a radio in the kitchen and a “console” radio in our dining room. My mother liked to iron, and we had an ironing board that came out of the kitchen wall.

When I was little, I would sit on the linoleum and play with my toys. One was a little truck or engine that you could spin back and forth a dozen times, then let it go and it would flew into my parents’ master bedroom, usually hitting on a door, the bottom of their bed or into a closet. After a few years, the linoleum in the kitchen had to be replaced.

While my mom ironed and I played with toys, I listened to the radio. In the evening, it was Dr. Christian and Jack Benny and Red Skelton. On Sunday morning, I would lie on dining room rug and read the “funnies” as the mayor of Albany read the Times-Union the same way Mayor LaGuardia did in New York City.

But back to my own radio show: I had guests in the room with me, or I would talk on the phone to chefs, cookbook authors and restaurant owners. And readers would call with questions.

Often Johnny asked me if I would run out of recipes. But, like the music made from just seven notes, one never runs out of recipes. This was a great year for cookbooks, but choosing my favorite wasn’t difficult.

Sweet Chili Chicken Thighs

From “Everyday Dorie” by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston and New York, 2018)

2 tablespoons canola or neutral oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped and dried
1 and one-half to 3 peeled fresh ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, germ removed and minced
Fine sea salt
One-quarter cup white wine
8 chicken thighs, with or without skin and/or bones, patted dry
Freshly ground pepper
One-half cup Thai sweet chili sauce*
One-third cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 
1 to 1 and one-half teaspoon Sriracha*
Sliced scallions and crushed red pepper flakes, for serving (optional)

Warm 1 tablespoon of oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat Add onion, ginger and garlic, season with salt, and cook, stirring until they soften a bit and are translucent but not browned, about five minutes

Add wine, increase the heat and cook, stirring, until most of the wine evaporates, about three minutes. Again, don’t color the onion mixture. Transfer ingredients to a bowl.

Return pot to medium heat and add remaining oil. Place thighs in the pot and brown on all sides, adding more oil if necessary. (If the thighs will be crowded, do this in two batches.) Pour and discard oil. If you have burnt bits of the bottom of the pots, remove chicken and scrub the pot, then return chicken to it.

Return the onions mixture to the pot, along with any juices that accumulated, add the chili sauce*, soy sauce, mustard and Sriracha* and stir to blend. Season lightly with salt and pepper and clap the lid on.

Turn heat down top low and cook, basting occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until chicken is opaque in the center; an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh should register 165 degrees.

Transfer to a platter (or serve right on the pot) and spoon over some of the juice. Add scallions and pepper flakes (optional). Pass the rest of the sauce at the table.

*I always have both sweet chili sauce and Sriracha in my pantry.