The Book: As I’ve told you in the past, I’m a sucker for good Southern food. Although I’m a New England girl through and through in most other aspects, the four years I spent in North Carolina were very formative for me in terms of learning to truly appreciate good food. Because of this, new Southern cookbooks get pride of place on my cookbook radar, and Heritage, the new cookbook from Sean Brock, was no exception. Hailing from “the part of Western Virginia that should have been Kentucky,” but receiving his culinary education in South Carolina, Brock makes food that has Southern roots both deep and wide. There’s a strong sense of purpose in the pages of Heritage – to embrace local food not only for its ethics and flavor, but for its history and story. I love how much narrative Brock has included in this book; it really helps me feel engrossed in the food’s history and culture. A strong emphasis on understanding your ingredients, where they came from, and how they can vary – for example, chicken is not just chicken, but poussin, broiler, fryer, roaster, or stew hen, depending on its age, and a different preparation is appropriate for each bird – completes the local, ethical, Southern vibe. The recipes skew more toward restaurant food than home-cooking, with multiple components and appliances required for many (the carefully composed plating of the photographed dishes will tip you off to this right off the bat). This isn’t a negative for an adventurous cook, but I do wish there were a few more homestyle dishes that would be easy to make and serve on a casual weeknight. Organized by source of food – the garden, the mill, the creek, the pasture- there is a great variety of recipe type, with a whole chapter dedicated to preserving (The Larder) and another one to cocktails and bar snacks (The Public House). Between the extensive narrative and the diverse recipes, most readers will find plenty to hold their interest in Heritage.

The Food: Trevor and I are big fans of cooking with rabbit, but we’ve had trouble finding recipes that really allow it to shine. This Russian Rabbit and Mushroom Pie is our favorite, but we were less impressed with the Rabbit Cacciatore from Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey. Sean includes a couple of rabbit recipes in Heritage, so we decided to give the Rabbit Stew with Black Pepper Dumplings a go. It’s similar to a rabbit stew we enjoyed at Alden & Harlow a few weeks back, and also one of the more straightforward recipes in the book. The stew is made by making a broth from the rabbit, then removing and shredding the rabbit meat, while thickening the broth with a roux. The dumplings (which are really biscuits) are formed and baked separately, then tossed in the stew for the last few minutes of cooking, which gives you more control over their size, shape and level of doneness. I have mixed feelings about the end result – the stew was certainly tasty, and even more so as leftovers the next day, but I’m not sure it was tasty enough to warrant the use of a rabbit in place of a less pricey chicken. This could have something to do with the quality of our rabbit, of course – there’s not a ton of choice for rabbit meat near us. I think it’s a recipe that I’d like to try again with some of my own tweaks, but a good starting point.

Recipe Shortlist: Low Country Hoppin’ John; Corn Goat Cheese Soup with Shrimp and Brown-Butter Chanterelles; Green Garlic Bisque with Herbed Buttermilk and Fried Green Tomato Croutons; Cracklin’ Cornbread; Charred Beef Short Ribs with Glazed Carrots and Black Truffle Puree; Rabbit Andouille with Braised Peppers and Lady Pea Gravy; Rhubarb Buckle with Poppy-Seed Buttermilk Ice Cream

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Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Heritage free of charge from Artisan, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thought and opinions are my own.

Rabbit Stew with Black Pepper Dumplings

Recipe adapted slightly from Heritage. Serves 6.

For the dumplings:

• 1 lb. (3 1/3 c.) pastry flour, sifted and chilled in freezer
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 TBS freshly ground black pepper
• 8 TBS unsalted butter, frozen
• 1 1/2 c. ice cold whole-milk buttermilk

For the stew:

• 1 large rabbit (2-3 pounds)
• 4 c. small dice white onions
• 2 c. medium dice celery
• 2 c. medium dice carrots
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 TBS unsalted butter
• 1/4 c. flour
• 1 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS hot sauce
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. To make the dumplings: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly butter a baking sheet. In a large bowl, combine the chilled flour, baking powder, salt, and black pepper. Whisk to combine. Grate the frozen butter over the medium holes of a box grater, and immediately place the cold grated butter into the flour mixture. Use the tips of your fingers to toss the butter with the flour and incorporate just until the texture resembles coarse sand (a few bigger “pebbles” are fine). Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 2 minutes. Roll the dough out into a circle about 1/2 inch thick, and use a very small pastry cutter to cut small round dumplings (about 1/2 inch to 1 inch in diameter – we used the bottom of an espresso cup as a cutter). Place the dumplings on the baking sheet and bake just until they start to dry, about 9-10 minutes. You don’t want the dumplings to brown at all, as they should finish baking in the stew. Set the dumplings aside at room temperature.
2. To prepare the stew: Remove the giblets from the rabbit. Place the rabbit in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a simmer over high heat, skimming any scum from the top of the pot. Once simmering vigorously, add half of the onions, half of the celery, half of the carrots, the thyme, and the bay leaf. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer until broth is golden and rabbit meat pulls away easily from bone, about 1 hour to 90 minutes.
3. Remove the rabbit from the pot and let cool slightly. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl, discarding the solids left behind. Rinse the pot and return to the stove. Add the butter and melt over medium heat, then add the other half of the onions. Saute, stirring, until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the celery and saute another 2 minutes, then add the carrots and saute until tender, another 8 minutes. Add the flour to the pot and stir so it absorbs the fat. Continue to stir the roux constantly until the flour coating the vegetables is no longer white but a light golden color, about 5-10 minutes. Stir in the reserved broth 1 cup at a time, allowing to thicken slightly between additions. Once all the broth is added, bring to a simmer and simmer for 25-30 minutes.
4. While the broth is simmering, remove the rabbit meat from the rabbit and shred into bite-sized pieces, discarding the bones, skin, and tendons. 5 minutes before serving, add the shredded rabbit, hot sauce, soy sauce, and dumplings to the stew and simmer until the dumplings are soft and the rabbit is warmed through, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

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To so many, Paris is the ultimate destination – timeless, elegant, romantic and confident in its own charms. It’s the city of lights, the city of love and, one might argue, the ultimate city of food. Centuries of tradition have defined French cuisine as the haute cuisine, with dishes such as duck a l’orange, boeuf bourguignon, and chocolate souffle being practically synonymous with fine dining for many years. But classic French cooking doesn’t have to be intimidating and stuffy. As Rachel Khoo shows us in The Little Paris Kitchen, French food can be simple, wholesome, and yet still remain effortlessly chic.

Rachel is an all-around food personality – she has a pastry degree from Le Cordon Bleu, has written three cookbooks, and been the star of a cooking show. She’s more of an European personality than an American one, but I think the release of a US version of The Little Paris Kitchen, may change that. The book is a little glimpse into Rachel’s life in Paris, as shown through the food she makes to feed herself and her friends.

The recipes included are universally appealing, not in a way that made me think “Oh, I’d love to make that someday,” but in a way that made me add three recipes to my weekly menu after only 20 minutes flipping through the book. The fact that the food is simple but also interesting makes it easy to visualize incorporating into your everyday routine. Recipes such as Tartiflette Muffins, Onion Creme Brulee, and Cassoulet Soup with Duck-and-Sausage Dumplings are examples of the hearty, soul-warming food in this book that will probably be on my dinner menu soon. There are plenty of lighter, more elegant recipes that caught my eye as well – Champagne Sabayon with Strawberries and Cherry Tomatoes, Rosemary, Lavender, and Chevre Fougasse, and Cherry-Tomato Vanilla Jam are a few. In general, there’s a nice balance.

I should mention – this book has lots of pictures. And they’re beautiful pictures. In fact, every single recipe is accompanied by a full-page color photograph, a cookbook characteristic that I love – it makes it so much easier to decide what to cook when you can see the end result. There are also a lot of pictures of Rachel – Rachel shopping, Rachel riding her bike, Rachel holding a glass of wine and looking pensively into the distance, Rachel having a picnic with her attractive Parisian girlfriends. I think perhaps this would have stuck out less to me if I already knew more about her; as I didn’t, I found it a touch over-done. Just a personal thing. I will say that, along with the curly font and the pink text, the pictures of her out and about in pretty dresses definitely contributes to the overall girliness of the book’s style. It’s not over the top, but it’s definitely not gender neutral.

To test out the food, I started with two recipes – a roast vegetable salad with goat cheese mousse, and a chicken-dumpling soup. I’ll share the salad later this week, but for now let’s focus on this soup, which was even better than I was expecting it to be. The dumplings, also called quenelles, are made from ground chicken, soft white bread, and cream, and are then simmered for just a few minutes in a pot of chicken broth. The only other ingredients are a handful of just-cooked carrots and mushrooms and a sprinkling of fresh parsley. The result is a lovely bowl of super-comforting soup filled with soft, fluffy, deeply savory dumplings, the kind of soup that you wish someone would make for you every time you’re feeling down. (Solution: make some for yourself when you’re feeling good, then stick a bunch in the freezer for those days that you need to feel loved). It reminded me of matzoh-ball soup, but richer and more chicken-y (well, duh Katie). I loved it. I made a double-batch of the dumplings, and I’m saving the rest for the suggestion Rachel includes at the bottom of the recipe – broiling the poached quenelles with bechamel and grated cheese.

The bottom line: The Little Paris Kitchen is a book that makes classic French cooking an everyday affair. It’s a bit girly, and the author, Rachel, is strongly featured throughout the book (a la Giada or Rachel Ray), but the recipes are solid and the photography both beautiful and abundant. I can see this book quickly becoming a weeknight go-to for me with plenty of recipes that are quick and satisfying.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of The Little Paris Kitchen free of charge from Chronicle Books. I was not otherwise compensated and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Chicken Dumpling Soup / Bouillon de Poulet avec Des Quenelles de Volailles

Recipe from The Little Paris Kitchen. Serves 4.

• 6 1/2 c. chicken stock
• 2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 7 oz boneless skinless chicken breast or ground chicken
• 3 1/2 oz. white bread, no crusts (I used burger rolls)
• 6 1/2 TBS of half and half
• 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp salt
• a pinch of pepper
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 5 button mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley, leaves roughly chopped

1. Bring the chicken stock and chopped carrots to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Boil for 10 minutes, or until carrots are tender.
2. In a blender, combine the chicken, bread, half and half, egg, egg yolk, salt, pepper and nutmeg, and blend until you have a smooth and sticky paste. Use a spoon to form the paste into dumplings of about 2 TBS apiece, and drop the dumplings into the boiling broth. Cook the dumplings for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the mushrooms and cook for 1 minute longer. Check the inside of a dumpling just to make sure it is cooked all the way through. Serve the soup immediately, with a generous sprinkling of chopped parsley stirred in.

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Dumplings.  They seem to be one of the few foods that appear in almost every global cuisine in some form: pierogi in Poland, vareniki/piroshki in Russia, gyoza in Japan, samosas in India, ravioli in Italy, etc.  There’s even a cookbook on it, called  World of Dumplings (which I haven’t read, but showed up when I googled “dumplings worldwide” and it looks interesting!).  And why wouldn’t they be ubiquitous?   They’re delicious, addictive, bite-sized, finger food, filled with pretty much anything you want.

When I got back from my weekly long run yesterday, Trevor was just finishing making a batch of these dumplings.  He made the wrappers from scratch, rolled them out, filled them, steamed them, fried them, and even took some of these pictures.  He’s pretty good, right?  I walked in the door, thirsty and starving and cold and absolutely did work on a plate of dumplings.  As in, I ate 15.  In one go, barely taking a breath.  (And this is why you should never skip breakfast…).  It reminded me of potsticker night at Andover, when we used to have competitions over who could eat the most potstickers.  I think the record was 52 – hey, we were young and athletic then.

The filling in these, another Ming Tsai combination, is a mix of ground pork and the ginger-apple chutney I made last week.  Ming wins again.  If you aren’t as ambitious/awesome as Trevor, you can buy the wrappers pre-made and these will be pretty quick to make.  But the homemade wrappers were delicious – tender and soft and not at all rubbery – so if you have the time I’d recommend giving them a try with this great tutorial from La Fuji Mama.  We also watched this video for tips on folding them.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Pork and Ginger-Apple Chutney Potstickers

Recipe from Ming Tsai.  Makes about 40 potstickers.

• 40-50 potsticker wrappers (store-bought or use this recipe – I think we got 30 wrappers out of it)
• 1 lb. ground pork
• 2 TBS soy sauce
• 1/2 c. sliced scallions
• 1 c. ginger apple chutney
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg
• 2 TBS canola oil

1. In a medium bowl, mix together pork, soy sauce, scallions, and chutney with a spoon.  Season with salt and pepper.  Refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Mix together egg and 2 TBS of water to make an egg wash.
3. Lay out 6 of your potsticker wrappers on a cutting board.  Place 1 tsp of filling in the center of each wrapper.  Use your finger to rub egg wash around the edge of the wrapper, then fold over into a half-moon shape and tightly pinch all along the edges to seal the potsticker.  Press the straight side of the wrapper down gently on the board to allow the dumpling to stand up.  Repeat until all wrappers have been filled.
4. Heat the oil in a large pan with a lid over medium heat.  Stand the potstickers sealed side-up in the pan and cook without disturbing for 3-4 minutes.  Then, CAREFULLY add 1/2 c. water to the pan and quickly cover the pan to avoid splattering.  Once splattering has subsided, uncover pan to check that there is about a 1/4 inch of water in the pan – if not, add a little more.  Cover pan and steam for 8-10 minutes.  If the water evaporates before the potstickers are cooked (they should be puffy yet firm), add a little more.  If they seem done but there is still water in the pan, drain water from pan.  Once potstickers are cooked, recrisp in the pan without any water for 2 minutes, being careful not to let them burn.  Remove them to a platter and serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

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I miss hearing and speaking slavic languages.  It seems a little odd, but I actually find what most people consider to be the harsh sounds of Russian and Czech very soothing, perhaps because I have only good associations with them.  Memories of good people, of good stories.  It’s been over nine months since I left Prague, and Czech is rarely spoken in North Carolina.  Russian is more common, but I always freeze up when I hear people speaking it, so I don’t get as much practice as I would like.

I won’t be able to take another Russian course until the spring – too much engineering to be done – but I did just get a job with the library collections department assisting with cataloging slavic literature.  It might turn out to be sort of a tedious job, but I’m excited about the practice I’ll get and I think I’ll like it.  I like being around old books, sitting in dark, musty rooms heavy with silence.  I like the mystery of foreign titles, of imagining the story within.  I feel as though I’ve read so many short stories in Russian that I have this whole canon of Russian lore in my imagination.  You know the way that you feel you understand a place you’ve never been, just because you’ve read about it?  How you can have a swirling but fully complete concept of an Arabian desert because your mind has merged all the stories you’ve read into a real place?  How you know the feeling of salt spray on your face, the wind blowing your hair back as you stand on the prow of a wooden ship?  I sometimes wonder what the imaginations of people who have never had access to literature or media are like.  If you live in an isolated tribe in the desert, can you still dream of the ocean, not knowing what it is?  Could you conjure the idea of snow, never having heard of it?  Or would your imagination be that much greater, having never been limited by what can and can’t be?

I think that I have an especially good concept of Russia as portrayed through 19th century Russian literature – of the poverty and wheat fields, the cruelty and power of man, the weakness of the classical female character, of тоска, the untranslatable word that describes the melancholy every Russian is said to hold within their soul.  Maybe I don’t really understand, but when I conjure the Russia of my imagination, there is a sweeping expanse of plains dotted with epic sadnesses and small triumphs.  With happy summer dachas and cold, hungry winters.  With clever men who think only of evil, and strong, brainless men who triumph over them.  With withered babushkas in huts and frail, blonde peasant girls.

To honor all this Russian-ness on my mind, I decided to make fruit dumplings.  In Russian, the word for them is vareniki; in Czech, ovocne knedliky.  In Prague, my roommates and I used to pick these up at the potraviny as a quick dessert, and so I have many good memories of eating them late at night around our little kitchen table.  The recipe I used for these is a Czech one, however, these are a fairly ubiquitous dessert in Slavic countries, with slight variations from country to country, so they can serve as a culinary testimonial to both Russia and the Czech Republic.  The dough is a bit hard to work with, but don’t add too much flour as the stickiness of the dough helps to seal the fruit in.  Fresh or frozen fruit will work equally well here, and these are best served warm with sweetened cream, cottage cheese, whipped cream, or simply melted butter and sugar.

Ovocné Knedlíky – Fruit Dumplings

Makes 35-40 dumplings.  Recipe from bfeedme.

• 1 c. whole milk
• 1 TBS butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 2 c. flour, divided
• 8 oz. fresh or frozen fruit (cherries, plums, blackberries)

1. In a small bowl, lightly beat one egg.  Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, bring milk, butter, and salt to a boil, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, and pour half a cup of hot milk over beaten egg, whisking vigorously the whole time so the egg does not begin to scramble.  Return tempered egg and milk mixture to pan of milk, stirring.  Gradually pour in one cup of flour, stirring the whole time.  Dough will have the consistency of a thick paste.
3. Pour remaining cup of flour onto large cutting board.  Form a large well in the middle, and pour hot dough onto flour.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes, or until it is comfortable to knead with your hands.  Knead flour into dough until it forms a ball.  Dough should be sticky, but add up to 1/2 cup extra flour for workability.
4. Tear small pieces of dough off the ball and pinch into a thin disk.  Place piece of fruit in center of disk and wrap dough around fruit, sealing the edges, so that the dough is spread equally thin around fruit.  The layer of dough should be as thin as possible for the best flavor.  Repeat to form remaining dumplings.
5. Bring a large pot of water to a rapid boil.  Add dumplings, and boil for 10-15 minutes.  Dumplings should begin to float to top when done.  Remove from water with slotted spoon and serve warm, with sweetened cream, cottage or ricotta cheese, whipped cream, or melted butter.

* Dumplings can be frozen before boiling.

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