Lex Culinaria

Slow-cooked pork with black grapes

I found this recipe on Epicurious the other day as I was looking for pork recipes that could be adapted to a slow cooker. The sauce is quite sweet (even with the reduced amount of sugar) but not in an unpleasant way - more in an unexpected, sweet and sour kind of way. It doesn't look that great - sort of ubiquitous brown, but if you have more patience than I did with reducing the sauce, you might get a better, grapier colour. I'd advise straining the stock as well before you reduce it, as the pork bits in it make it look a bit "dirty". This'd make a good winter braise over polenta or risotto rather than potatoes. In fact I did mine over roast garlic grits one night and (because it makes lot!) I served it over grits made with sauteed mushrooms and onions the next night. Both accompaniments were good.

I have restated the ingredient list and instructions here, because I changed both. Feel free to use the original or something in between. I have never tried the original, so I can't comment on whether my changes were improvements or not - they were just changes I made based on my perception that the herb, vinegar and sugar quantities in the original recipe would resulted in an overpoweringly herby, sour and sweet dish. You can be the judge for your own palate. It got some pretty good reviews on the comments section of Epicurious in its original form.

Slow-Cooked Pork with Black Grapes

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 4 cups low-salt chicken broth
• 3 large fresh sage sprigs
• 8 large fresh thyme sprigs
• 2.5 large fresh rosemary sprigs
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 5-pound boneless pork shoulder or leg, cut up or whole
• 2 cups thickly sliced shallots
• 1 medium onion, roughly sliced
• 5 cups seedless black grapes

Place herbs, sugar, vinegar and all but 1 cup of the stock into the bottom of the slow cooker. Heat oil in a large wok or skillet. Brown pork on all sides over high heat. Remove the browned pork to the slow-cooker. Turn the heat down under the skillet so that it is medium-high. Use remaining oil to slightly brown onion and shallots. Deglaze the pan with 1 cup of the stock and pour the contents into the slow-cooker. Add grapes to the slow-cooker, cover and turn to high. Allow to cook 5 hours.

Remove the cooked pork to a plate and ladle out the grapes and onion pieces into a bowl. Strain stock into a saucepan and reduce over high heat until only about 2.5 cups remain (this could take as much as 1/2 hour). Meanwhile, use 2 forks to pull pork meat apart into shreds. Toss the shredded pork with cooked grapes and stir through the reduced sauce. Serve over risotto, polenta or grits.

A bucket of lye and some corn

as well as a spare day or two will get you some homemade grits.  Or you could just buy them at the store.

Grits are pretty common in the Southern States. I've been told the North-South disparity in grit popularity arose for climactic reasons. Grits are more heat and humidity stable and therefore kept better in the pantries of the South than did dried oats, so grits were commonly eaten as a breakfast cereal in place of oatmeal. The Northerners kept right on with the oatmeal. I've gotta say, I'd rather put brown sugar and cream on oatmeal or cream of wheat. I do, however, absolutely love love love grits for their infinite savoury possibilities.

Given the North-South disparity in grit-eating (and I'm about as far North as you can get and still have trees as opposed to tundra), I understand that my love of grits might confound some readers. Grits certainly aren't part of native Canadian cuisine and it sure can be hard to even find them in the stores here. But there you are. I love them.  And what's not to love? They are cornier-tasting than polenta. They come in an infinite variety of textures from very fine (similar to cream of wheat) to quite coarse. They cook quickly and hold up nicely. And they have a clear affinity for cheese, which practically makes them ambrosia to my mind. 

Quite often in our house we will substitute grits for polenta, or rice, or even mashed potatoes. A favourite breakfast is constructed out of a mound of cheddar-cheesy fine ground grits topped with some sauteed spinach or roasted tomatoes and a quivering poached egg. Like polenta, cooked grits firm up as they get cold so they are perfect for making little savoury cakes with (guess what will be on the menu at our upcoming Christmas cocktail party?)

I have to prevail upon friends from the States to mail me packets of Aunt Jemima's Quick Grits because you can't buy the really fine ground grits here and I'm too darn lazy to buy a grain mill attachment for my beloved lavender-coloured Kitchen Aid. So you can imagine how pleased I was to discover that the Italian  Centre Shop carries two coarsenessess of stone ground grits on a regular basis.

For this recipe, which is really just a bastardization of my standard method of making garlic mashed potatoes, I used medium coarse grits - when dry, each individual grit (?) is about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of a a grain of arborio rice.

Roasted garlic grits

This will make easily a litre of grits! - enough for at least 6 as a side.

• 1 head garlic, roasted and cooled
• 1 cup medium coarse stone-ground grits
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese  (or Philly cream cheese)
• cracked pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

Peel garlic and use s fork to mash the roasted cloves into a coarse paste. Place garlic paste, stock and grits into a medium saucepan, stir well and  heart, over medium high heat until bubbling. Reduce the heat and continue to simmer the grits, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes, adding more liquid if necessary. Take a small spoonful to test for doneness. Once the grita are quite thick and soft, remove the pot from the heat and stir the mascarpone and parsley in until the cheese is evenly distributed.

Dollop the grits onto plates and serve with vegetables and meat over the top.

Chocolate dipped pistachio and cardamom cookies

I love ANY excuse to make yummy little cookies. Especially ones that look difficult, but aren't really at all. November's Cookie Swap (a joint Sugar High Friday and IMBB event) give me just that excuse.

These little cookies are just the right size for the holidays, that is they are small enough to have more than one without making you feel sick about all the butter and sugar. They package up very nicely as well. You can make a big batch of the basic dough and add in little extras for a few varieties of really elegant, and totally different tasting cookies. In addition to the two "flavours" I made: pistachio & cardamom and candied ginger the possibilities are endless: dried cranberry & orange, chocolate & cinnamon, peppermint, toffee, almond and cherry, lemon & lavender.... the list really is endless.

Chocolate dipped cardamom pistachio and candied ginger cookies

Makes 30 of each flavour (60 total)

• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 1 cup packed golden sugar
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 + 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/3 + 1/4 cup finely chopped pistachios
• 1/3 + 1/4 cup finely chopped candied ginger
• 3 squares semisweet baking chocolate
• 1/2 tablespoon vegetable shortening

Preheat oven to 375F

Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of your upright mixer. Add milk, vanilla, baking soda and beat to combine. Add in flour and third at a time, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl a few times during the process as needed.  Turn off machine, remove dough and separate into two halve. Put one half back into he mixer and add in the cardamom and pistachio. Mix thoroughly. Remove the pistachio dough and pop the second half of the basic dough into the mixer. Add in chopped ginger and mix to combine thoroughly.

Roll out each dough onto waxed paper, using a little flour to stop it from sticking to the rolling pin if necessary. Roll each ball out in roughly a rectangle shape until it is no more than 2 millimetres thick. Using a standard plastic ruler or a piece of cardboard cut into a strip 4 cm by 25 cm use a sharp knife to carefully cut the dough into little 4 cm by 4 cm squares using the ruler or cardboard strip as a guide.

Use the flat of a sharp and wide knife to pick up each cookie square and transfer to a cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheet.

Melt chocolate and shortening together until quite runny. I do mine in the microwave, on medium heat for 30 second bursts stirring between each. This way it takes about 2 minutes. You can do it in the double boiler if you like.

Dip each cookie diagonally into the melted chocolate and allow excess to drip off. Place the dipped cookie on waxed paper and sprinkle the chocolate gently with a little minced pistachio or ginger, depending on the type of cookie. If you find that your ginger pieces stick together too much, try rubbing them together between your hands with a bit of powdered dried ginger to encourage them not to stick together.

Poached Pears with Sticky Vanilla-Orange Cream

I've been wanting to poach me some pears for quite a while now. I spent the better part of two weeks running various poached-pear dishes through my head before I finally, reluctantly settled on just one. I first contemplated poached pears on vanilla risotto, having just bought some lovely carnaroli rice the other day. I mulled over the possibility of a poached pear with honeyed fresh ricotta. I also contemplated a poached-pear creme brulee, which I might still get the nerve to do, and a poached pear coated in red wine caramel (also still a distinct possibility)...I was sorely tempted to make one of each kind and have a kind of compearison (groan. sorry.) of sorts, but thought that it was probably taking the cooking thing too damn far, even for me. This little baby won out. And am I ever glad it did. The mascarpone custard is really thick and sticky and orangey-sweet - very rich! But it provides the perfect partner for the cool, port-poached pear. Just don't think about the calories.

Serves 4

• ½ cup whipping cream
• 3 thin pieces fresh ginger 1 cm by 3 cm
• 1 cinnamon quill
• 2 pieces (1 cm by 3 cm) organic orange rind (pith totally removed with a sharp knife)
• 1 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 Tbsp good quality Mexican vanilla (or one vanilla bean, split lengthwise)
• 1 teaspoon orange liquer
• 4 organic Bosc pears, peeled and bottoms sliced flat so they stand up, stems still on
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup good red port
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 fresh sage leaves with ½ cm of stem attached

For the Sticky Vanilla-Orange Cream:

I used my own homemade very strong orange vodka with this instead of orange liquer, so if you use a commercial orange liquer, you might want to add less sugar.

Combine the whipping cream in a small saucepan over medium-low heat with ginger, cinnamon, sugar and orange rind. Stir frequently and allow the spices to infuse into the warm cream for 5 minutes. When it is quite warm, whisk in the mascarpone. You’ll have to do a fair amount of work to get it smooth, as the mascarpone will be very thick and sticky, but it will eventually all come together. Allow the mixture to heat back up until it is very warm to quite hot, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. While it is heating, whisk the yolks rapidly in a metal bowl until pale.  Add a half cup of the hot mascarpone mixture to the yolks and whisk in quickly. Transfer the yolk mixture back to the mascarpone in the pot and continue to whisk gently over medium heat until the mixture thickens, about 5 -7 minutes. Remove from heat, whisk in vanilla and Cointreau, and strain it through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Press cling film to the surface and place in the fridge to cool.

For the Pears:

Combine water, sugar, cinnamon and port in a saucepan just barely large enough to allow the pears to all lay on their sides. Bring it to a simmer, immerse the pears, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. If your pears aren’t quite covered to the top, turn them gently with tongs every 10 minutes.

Once the pears are cooked all the way through, remove them from the cooking liquid carefully using a slotted spoon and set them aside, covered to cool. If you want them a deep red colour, you can leave them for a few hours (or overnight) to cool in the pot of poaching liquid, but you’ll have to remember to turn them if the liquid doesn’t completely cover them.

For the Port Syrup:

Simmer the poaching liquid over medium heat until it is reduced in volume to about a 2/3 of a cup and has thickened slightly. Don’t let it reduce too much or become too thick unless you want port flavoured toffee! Remove from the stove to cool.

At this point you can refrigerate everything for assembly later (or the next day) or you can serve it now. If you do decide to refrigerate it for serving later, you can warm the pears slightly by popping them in the microwave for about 30 second each. The cream should remain cooled as it must be thick enough to stand the pears up in!

When you’re ready to serve. Drop a mound of the cream onto a serving plate. Stand a pear upright in the centre of the cream. Use a spoon to drizzle port syrup over the pear and down onto the cream. Use a small skewer to poke a hole in the top of the pear near the stem. Insert the stem of the sage leaf into the hole and curl it over gently with your fingers.

Lavender and lemon snowflake cookies

I've been making fancy-pantsy decorated cookies for festive occasions since Valentines Day in 1996 and have made them either for Christmas or Valentines or both ever since. I usually just make plain vanilla sugar cookies or chocolate ones, but this year, I've been doing a lot of cooking with lavender (plus there's a huge packet of organic lavender in my spice cupboard that was quite expensive so I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go to waste!) so I added lavender and lemon to my repertoire, plus I used a less-sweet more shortbready type of dough.

I had a hunch these might be good, but I really didn't expect them to be THIS good. They are divine, very lemony but with a hint of delicate lavender perfume. And with tiny pretty yellow and purple flecks in them ...I almost don't want to cover them with royal icing. In fact, I may make a second batch of smaller, round ones with nothing but a tiny dusting of icing sugar on top.

• 1 + 1/2 cups softened butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 extra large egg
• 1 extra large egg yolk
• 3 + 3/4 cups flour ( a little less if you have smaller eggs)
• 3 + 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
• 2 teaspoons crushed lavender flowers

In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, lemon and lavender and beat to combine.  Add flour, one cup at a time and beat until well combined, about 3 minutes. Roll dough into a log on top of a sheet of waxed paper, roll the log up in the paper, twist the ends and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 375F.

Roll the dough out to 2-3 mm thick and cut into snowflake (or whatever you fancy) shapes.  Transfer cookies to cookie sheet using a spatula. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly on pan before removing to a tea towel set on the counter to cool.

When I'm making a batch of cookies big enough to require  several goes in the oven using the same pans, I lay out all the cut cookies on sheets of aluminium foil for quick exchange between batches - I slide the foil with the baked cookies off onto the counter and slide the new dough-covered foil onto the pan and pop it straight back into the oven.

If you're going to frost these, allow them to cool completely before you do. I frost mine with royal icing made using my mum's old recipe. It uses raw egg whites. Most recipes I see these days call for powdered egg whites, which I suppose is more sterile. I'm not about to change though.

There are so many ways to decorate these nicely, but mainly you need to have two kinds of Royal icing - thick, for piping, and thin, for coating. To totally coat a shape, pipe an outline with the thick icing and then fill it in with spoon-fulls of the thinner icing,spreading it out with the back of a spoon.  I'll be decorating some this weekend and I'll have a new post on the decorating then.

Mediocre recipes anonymous: Lenny needs your help!

My name is Lenny, and I am a casserole.

I know I'm good looking, but I seem to have this problem connecting with people. I guess I'm just afraid of committment - so I try to reject people before they reject me. My good looks mean that I get approached a lot - in the grocery store, at the gym, when I'm minding my own business just sitting having a cup of coffee. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the attention and I'd really love to have a lasting relationship, but I'm really afraid of taking things to the next level.

I know I've got it in me to be assertive about my needs and confident enough to go out and get what I want out of life, but I've just fallen into this pattern of underselling myself. I protect myself from dissapointment by being aloof...bland and, truthfully, kind of bitter. I guess I think that it will make people leave me alone so that I don't get hurt. I think it'd really help if I could find a special person who chould see beyond the act and realize my potential. I really think that underneath there's a nurturing, comforting soul, maybe with just a hint of heat, if you catch my drift. So, anyway, I'm Lenny, and I just thought you should know this about me.

I found this great-looking recipe for cabbage, parmesan and pasta layer bake in issue 22 of Donna Hay that I thought I'd try for supper. I doctored it a little bit by adding leeks, using ziti instead of macaroni, using savoy cabbage (because that's what I had) and adding some crispy fried crumbled proscuitto. I don't think any of these changes were damaging or even critical.

I've gotta say though, although the dish really looked great , just like in Donnay Hay (I'm sure you'll agree) it really didn't taste very good. It was bland, kind of bitter and really un-special. I LOVE the way it looks (especially with the #8 ziti which is really just fat macaroni as long as your standard spaghetti noodles) and how easy it was. I think it has great potential.  I've posted the recipe below (without my changes) and welcome any and all suggestions for improving on this concept. I really want this to work!

Some of my brief thoughts on the matter are:

• a more assertive cheese - mozzarella is just not tasty enough
• more garlic.
• ditch the cabbage and replace it with something like roasted eggplant slices or portobello slices, already cooked.
• thoroughly coat the top layer of cabbage with cheese to prevent it from getting so brown - I think the browned leaves at the top contribute to the bitter taste.
• make it in a deep silicon cake pan rather than a springform pan as the egg kind of managed to circumnavigate the baking paper and butter and ooze out the bottom a little.

Let me know what you think. Lenny's waiting for someone to show him some love.

Cabbage, parmesan and pasta layer bake

• ½ tablespoon olive oil
• 1 brown onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 250g macaroni, cooked
• 2 cups finely grated parmesan cheese
• sea salt and cracked black pepper
• 1.5 kg (3 lb) green cabbage, leaves separated
• 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup cream
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 160C (320F). Heat a medium non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add the oil, onion and garlic and cook for 1 minute or until the onion is tender. Add to the cooked pasta with half the parmesan, salt and pepper Mix well and set aside.

Bring a large saucepan of cold salted water to the boil. Add the cabbage leaves a few at a time and cook for 1-2 minutes or until tender, drain well and pat dry.  Grease and line the base of a 22cm (8 in) springform tin with baking paper. Cover the base of the tin with a layer of cabbage leaves. sprinkle over a little of the parmesan and mozzarella and top with a layer of pasta. Repeat with remaining ingredients finishing with a layer of cabbage leaves. Top with any remaining cheese. Place the tin on a baking tray. Whisk together the cream and eggs and carefully pour over the cabbage layers.  Bake for 40 minutes or until the top is golden and the egg is set Serves 6.

Blog Party 4: Housewarming

Okay, so we're not really having a housewarming, but I figure it's an accurate description for what a party in Edmonton in November should be about, filling your home with the warmth of family and friends and some great food and drinks.

Stephanie, one of my favourite food bloggers came up with a brilliant idea about four months ago, which I've only just got off my butt to do something for in November. After a year of trying to keep up with an 80-hour a week job, my regular blogging and all the food memes and monthly events out there, I took a few months break from the endless memeing and have turned over a new leaf. Henceforth, I will only participate in the events that really excite me to bits. Stephanie's Blog Party excites me to bits. Because I love a good cocktail and good party food.

Because it's November and therefore honorary "housewarming" month in our home, I tried to create some warming goodies for my pretend party (really just me and Cakes and two small tee-totalling kitties): a baked potted goat cheese for dipping and spreading warm from the oven on nice baguette rounds, and a colourful citrus and pomegranate cocktail with a fair dose of ginger to warm your throat on the way down.

Baked Potted Goat Cheese

• 3 (thick) slices prosciutto
• 1 small leek (white/yellow part only) sliced thinly
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp cracked pepper
• 300gm fresh chevre

Pre-heat oven to 375F. Fry the prosciutto over high heat until crispy and remove to paper towel to drain.  Quickly fry the leek and garlic in the grease left over from the prosciutto. Use a fork to mash all the ingredients together and pat it into a large (400ml) ramekin. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until top starts getting brownish and cracking.

Serve with toasted baguette rounds.

Pomegranate and ginger cocktails

First of all. Please forgive me for not having proper cocktail glasses. Yep. Not a one. How sad. I had to mix this drink in a Collins glass. Again, quite sad. Although they are very nice Collins glasses. That is, those of them that are left after inflicting my husband upon them...

I digress.

Let me just say that I LOVE drinks with ginger in them. So much that I can regularly be found in my kitchen making ginger syrup by boiling slices of fresh ginger in water and sugar for a good long while and then reducing the liquid to a drippy, powerfully gingery syrup. It's great in lemonade. And tea.

I also love pomegranate and right now they are everywhere. I reckoned the two items would make a stellar drink. And so they do! I think some of you might want to substitute champagne for the Sprite in this and I think that would be an excellent thing to do. We weren't feeling terribly much like getting hammered tonight though, so Sprite it is. If you do use champagne instead of lemonade you might want to think about using a smidge more pomegranate molasses. It's really kind of neat the way the pomegranate seeds get stuck in the thik molasses at the bottom. It reminds me a bit of bubble tea. Then the Sprite starts bubbling away and the seeds get pushed up to the top...

• 1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
• 2 Tablespoons pomegranate seeds
• 2 Tablespoons ginger syrup
• 1 oz citrus vodka ( I make my own with the rind of 3 organic oranges soaking in 500 ml vodka for a month - it totally beats the Stolli or Absolut stuff for oranginess)
• Sprite

Pour the pomegranate molasses in the bottom of an empty glass. top with the seeds. Mix the ginger syrup and vodka together. Pour gently over the seeds. Top with Sprite. When you're sick of watching the little seeds pop up and down on the bubbles, stir.

Chicken soup with a soul

Have you ever wondered how the Mexicans and the Thais ended up coming up with the same great combination of cilantro, lime and hot chilies? I mean, their countries are about as far apart as two places can get - but somehow they both cottoned on to this great combo while no on else (to my knowledge) did. Just some food for thought there.

Nothing quite says "soup season" like homemade chicken soup. This one has a sort of fresh Mexican/Thai feel to it with cilantro, fresh tomato, lime and chili peppers. It's really warming and comforting while still being fresh and totally UN-heavy. I made it over the weekend and have been dipping back into the soup pot every day for some more. It also takes advantage of the great fresh autumn corn that's been around lately.

Mexican Chili, lime and chicken soup

Serves 6

• 1.5 litres of good chicken stock
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 -3 fresh small Thai chilies (most seeds removed) chopped fine
• 1-2 large red chillies (seeds and ribs removed) sliced
• 2 1/2 by 3 cm strips lime zest (all traces of pith cut away)
• 2 fresh corn cobs, rubbed with oil and roasted in a 350F oven for 20 minutes
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced very thinly diagonally to the grain
• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced (skin and all)
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
• juice of 2 small limes
• salt, pepper

Combine stock, garlic, chillies and zest in a large pot and heat over medium, high heat. Meanwhile, use a sharp knife to cut the corn kernels from the roasted corn. Be careful if they are still hot out of the oven. Add the kernels to the pot.

Once the pot is simmering very well, add the sliced raw chicken and stir to separate the pieces. Bring the soup back up to the boil and cook just until the chicken is cooked through (check this by cutting pieces through the middle to check for pink). If you've sliced your chicken pretty thinly, this should only take a couple of minutes. The secret is to not overcook the chicken or it will become tough.

Once the chicken is cooked turn off the heat and remove the pan to a cool spot. Stir in the tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice. Add salt and pepper as necessary. Fish out the pieces of zest.

Yum.  I like to eat this with toasted tortilla strips crumbled roughly over the top.

The REAL secret of poached eggs

I have discovered that the secret of fantastic poached eggs is to NOT make a whirlpool. I have been needlessly stressing myself out all these years over my inadequate whirlpooling abilities! Do this instead:

For 4 eggs:

1) Fill a wide, deep pan with hot water. I used my stirfry pan and filled it about 3 inches worth. Place on element at Medium-High heat.

2) Add some salt.  I added 2 teaspoons.

3) Break each egg gently into a small bowl (you can do this one at a time if you like instead of messing up several bowls)

4) Wait for the water to just simmer, but don't let it bubble too much at all.

5) Gently slip the egg out of the bowl into the water. I almost submerged the bowl first and then gently tipped it into the water.

6) Add three more eggs in the same way immediately.

7) continue to simmer for a couple of minutes, until the eggs look like they are starting to cook on the outsides and are no longer "bleeding" into the water.

8) Turn the heat off and take the pan off the stove. Allow the eggs to finish cooking in the hot water. This should give you several minutes to set the plates up and get everything else ready. Just keep a close eye on them and check their done-ness by jiggleing the pan a bit - the yolks should still be soft and runny and jiggly and the whites mostly cooked and not jiggly.

The not-as-lesser as cinnamon babka

Remember that Sienfeld episode where George and Gerry & Elaine are going to a dinner party and they are planning to bring a Chocolate Babka for a hostess gift.? Elaine got in line at the bakery and there was some confusion over the take-a-number system. The lady before her got the last chocolate babka and Elaine was stuck with the cinnamon babka. The lesser babka, she called it.

I couldn't help but to be reminded of that episode as I was baking this cake. I am not sure where on the babka foodchain a poppyseed babka would place. I personally, would put it on equal footing with the chocolate babka, but I've got strong eastern European heritage on my side, which I'm sure includes a gene for poppyseed cravings.

When I was small, my grandma used to make Pampushky, a Ukrainian yeast donut filled with sweet crushed poppyseeds and I loved them. Grandma used to grow and harvest her own poppies for the seeds, so I guess it never occurred to me that you could buy a similar filling already prepared. I was so enchanted by the discovery that you can in fact purchaser prepared poppyseed filling, that I bought a huge tin of it without any idea in my head what I would do with it. It's been sitting in my cupboard since last March, waiting to be turned into something yummy.

It struck me last week, that I could probably use it to make something like the a poppyseed kugelhopf that I used to buy on Acland street at the Europa Cake Shop. The Europa's poppyseed kugelhopf was a twisty many-layered doughy thing, filled with sweet poppyseeds and topped with lovely chocolate ganache.  I spent a few hours looking up kugelhopf recipes on the internet and although there were plenty of poppyseed ones,  all the recipes I found were for a soft dough that you mixed the seeds directly in and then dropped by spoonsfull into the pan - like drop scones. Hardly the twisty layery confection I craved. On a hunch that babkas might be similar to kugelhopf, I had a look for some babka recipes and came up with a couple that weren't quite right. I ended up pasting together bits of four or five recipes to come up with what I actually made. It's pretty close to what I recall of the kugelhopf at the Europa - doughy, chewy, buttery and full of sweet poppyseeds. Now I know why they charged $25 for theirs. They are a lot of work. I can't imagine how much more work would be involved if you grew and crushed your own seeds! Luckily, I know where to get the big tins of filling. Mwaaaa haaa ha ha.

This is a really nice cake - not too sweet or cloying. I guess it's more of a grown up late-night-coffee type dessert. It's less flashy and more honest than a lot of the deserts you see nowadays. There's something refreshingly peasant-y about it while still being very elegant. The poppyseeds also provide an interesting taste and texture change from chocolate. It'd be a pretty impressive end to a special winter meal, or a nice middle of the afternoon snack.

Poppyseed kugelhopf

• 12 grams yeast
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups flour
• 2/3 cup butter
• 1 (950 gram) tin poppyseed filling (or make your own)
• 3 egg whites
• 1 egg ( for egg wash)

Warm up milk, add teaspoon of sugar and dissolve yeast in the warm milk mixture for 5 mintues, or until it begins to foam slightly. If the yeast has been refrigerated it might take a few extra minutes. Pour yeast mix into mixer bowl (I used my kitchenaid). Add sugar, vanilla, egg and yolks and mix to combine well. Using your mixer's paddle attachment, start the machine on low-mid speed and add the flour, a cup at a time until you have about a half cup flour remaining. Remove the paddle attachment and attach the dough hook. Add in butter (cut into chunks) and the remaining flour. Mix until smooth, soft and a bit sticky to the touch - about 3-5 minutes.

Turn dough out onto well floured surface and knead for 5 or 10 minutes. Form into a ball, coat with soft butter and place in a covered bowl in a warm spot to rise until double in bulk (30 minutes should do it).

Punch the dough down and roll out on a well floured surface to a thickness of about 1/8" (approx. 2 mm). Try to get the rolled dough roughly into a rectangle shape. Brush the perimiter of the dough with eggwash. Spread the poppyseed filling out evenly over the dough, leaving a two inch border on both short edges and on of the long ones, and a 4 inch border on the remaining long edge.

Whip egg whites to stiff peaks. Spread egg whites over the top of the poppyseed filling. Roll the dough up the long way, like you would a jelly roll, pinching ends of the roll, and the final long seam together. Really squish the seams together, It's important that they stay shut because you're going to twist and turn the dough log quite a lot and you don't want it popping open and getting poppyseed everywhere (mine did a bit).

Gently twist the dough log so that you get diagonal candy-cane like twist marks, and pull gently to stretch it out a bit longer. Double it over and gently stretch and twist some more until you've got a twisty dough log that will fit into your bundt pan in a circle. Butter your bundt pan and press the dough into the pan gently to make sure the hollows and dips in the pattern are filled. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place it in a warm place to rise for 20 to 30 minutes.

Remove plastic wrap and bake the cake in the oven at 350 for 55 minutes. Allow to cool slightly in the pan and then turn out to continue cooling.

Drizzle whatever icing you want over it while it's still warm. A lemon icing might be nice with poppyseeds. Or you could make a ganache of dark semisweet chocolate melted with a bit of butter and cream and a touch of sugar, drizzle it over the top and let it run down the warm cake. I was going to make a nice chocolate ganache, but I put the chocolate in the microwave too long and burnt it. Boo. I managed to save the day by making a stellar shiny glaze out of 1 cup corn syrup, 1/3 cup (very) dark cocoa, 1 tsp vanilla, which I whisked on the stove until it bubbled, and then stirred through 2 tablespoons each of of thick cream and butter. I let it cool slightly and then drizzled it over the top and down the sides.

Wait until it's almost completely cool before you slice it, or it will fall apart.

If you don't want to use the poppyseed filling you can make a chocolate filling (450 grams almond paste, 1/4 cup unsalted butter and 250 grams grated bittersweet chocolate - plus the whipped egg whites). Also, if you cant find the poppyseed filling, you can google the words "poppyseed filling recipe" and use whichever one strikes your fancy.

This cake is very similar to the one I used to buy at the Europa, but to get closer, I'll have to work on making my dough layers thinner and work on some more convoluted twists. Perhaps if I make several small rolls and sort of twist them together it might be more convoluted. Also, the one from the Europa had a bit of space between the layers. I was hoping the whipped egg whites would help in that department by taking up space and making steam, but they don't seem to have. If you've got any suggestions, I'd love to hear.

Like most yeast doughs, this cake gets less moist the longer it sits, but just zap a slice in the microwave for a half a minute and it's as warm and soft as when it came out of the oven.