I always thought Beer Cocktails was a "bartender with too much free time" bad idea jeans, but this baby changed my mind. It originates at Rasika in DC. I make it with Stirrings Ginger liqueur instead of the much pricier Canton, and it was more than fine. More than fine--it maybe the ultimate hot weather thirst quencher. Give it a spin.
From ripe, juicy plum to wrinkled prune may be a petrifying analogy to our human journey, but you got to admit prunes have more taste than putrefying flesh (not that I'd know for sure). Intensified with the right ingredients, you got a bomb of a cake. This recipe is my mother’s, and it goes with any occasion.
1.5 cups prunes
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soft butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Pit and dice prunes. Add lemon rind, set aside. Grease and flour a 9’’ tube pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt; remove a quarter cup and toss with prunes. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. slowly beat in flour mixture, alternately with sour cream and vanilla, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in prunes, brown sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees 55 minutes or until done. Cool in pan on rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before digging in.
The interesting thing about this recipe is it was imported to Denmark 35 years ago by my then au-pairing mother in Rhode Island. Now it’s back in New York and hittin' the vibe of high-calorie coffee cakes, right in tune.
NYC is a great pizza town (Luzzo’s and Motorino and Co. are three of my faves—Artichoke is the most overrated) but the cheap ingredients and assembly line atmosphere of most places gets me down after a while. Kat and I had a new Czech friend over for dinner, and we were itching for a pizza party.
Of course, our landlord supplied stove can’t go to the necessary heat of a real pizza oven (it tops out at 500 and feels like it’s going to melt at that) but our pizzas were light and delicious anyway.
We made three—a clam/potato pie which Kat was surprised she really liked (she’s from Rome and a traditionalist), a marinara and Prosciutto pie that was simple and awesome, and a “leftovers pie” (SEE DRUNKEN IPHONE PIC BELOW) with pork sausage, mozz, a little stilton cheese, tiny sweet peppers, olives and minced pickled jalapenos. Which was very good as well. We had a bunch of Czech beers and then I made Moscow Mules and then nobody seemed to make much sense when they talked. The End. ZZZZZZ.
KAT’S DOUGH
King Arthur flour will do the job, but if you mix in a bit of semolina you’ll get more of a bite. The easiest and best procedure is to make a starter. Take half a cup of semolina and mix it with 1,5 cup of white, unbleached, and enough luke-warm water to produce a liquidy dough. Mix up the dough with a fork, a pinch of dried yeast, generous pinches of salt and let it stand covered for 5-9 hours. 3-4 hours before you are ready to eat, mix in the remaining flour (approx 1,5 cup, but it check the texture: it needs to be springy when you’re done kneading it, but not as firm as actual bread). Keep kneading it till your arms give in (at least 10 min), then let it rise the second time, approx 3 hours, it needs to rise to triple size. When hunger seizes you, part the dough in four and start preparing the toppings. To produce a flat and round pizza, roll the dough into a ball and flatten it on a floured table, using the balm and fingers of your hand to stretch it. You can also use the gravity and hold it in the air, but it might take some practice!
CLAM AND POTATO WHITE PIZZA PIE
YOU’LL NEED:
Pizza dough (see above)
Minced garlic
Herbs—rosemary, red pepper flakes, sage, oregano, whatevers
One medium sized potato
Can of clams ( 6 oz can should do it)
Half a ball of the best mozzarella cheese you can get
Little wedge of Parmigiano cheese (grated)
DOIN IT: Slice up a potato into thin (but not potato chip thin) rounds. Fry in a skillet for about 6 minutes until edible. Sprinkle with black pepper and a little salt.
Roll out the dough, and sprinkle with a teaspoon each of your favorite herbs—minced garlic, sage, finely chopped rosemary, basil, red pepper, etc.
Cover with potato slices. Put into the oven at the highest possible temp and cook until the crust is firm and slightly golden.
Cover pizza with clams (and let that juice fly around as well), thin slices of mozzarella and a healthy dusting of Parmigiano cheese. Put back in the over and cook until the cheese is melted and the crust browns.
Grind a little black pepper on it. Eat it up and think good thoughts of us.
