2011 Picnic Recipes

OK, it's that time again: put in your requests or volunteer your picnic recipes.

"Buffalo Wing" Deviled Eggs
The essence of buffalo wings are the crispy chicken skin -- not breaded, just fried crisp. A little gribenes seemed just right for this
Combine a dozen hard-boiled yolks with 3 oz blue cheese, 1/4 cup buttermilk, 2 Tbs lemon juice, 2 tsp fresh chives, salt and pepper to taste. Pipe into whites. Garnish with celery, carrot, and gribenes that have been doused in Frank's Red Hot Sauce.

My other ones were wasabi, I've done them before (wasabi paste, kewpie mayo, salt, a little extra rice vinegar), this time garnished with nori, gare (pickled ginger) and tobiko (flying fish roe)

Loved both styles of eggs, Joel. Thanks for sharing the recipes.

Sparky appreciated the straight-up gribenes, as any red-blooded child should. Had I known that was in egg #2, I'd have made that my choice, but who can resist the siren call of eggs with fish eggs?

delicious and beautiful eggs, Joel. I could not figure out what those gorgeous gribene morsels were--until now!
Did you make those or purchase them pre-made?

Tomato Tarte Tatin
(note - for the picnic I doubled the recipe and baked it in a 9x13 pan after cooking the tomatoes in a cast iron pan)

Ingredients
oil and butter
Tomatoes - recipe suggests romas, I have made them with all sorts -
salt, pepper
thyme
basil, garlic (optional)
cous cous
pie crust

Butter and oil a pan you can put into the oven, I use cast iron
Pre-heat oven to 425

core tomatoes, cut in half, put skin side down in the pan, fit in as many as you can, they will shrink
cook them slowly for a good long time until they soften
dust with salt and pepper and thyme (fresh is best, but dry is OK)
optionally scatter minced garlic and basil over tomatoes
toss 2-3 Tbs cous cous over tomatoes
place pie crust on top of tomatoes, tuck in around edges, poke all over to make steam vents

Bake until crust is golden brown, let cool, invert onto a plate, serve warm,or at room temperature

nancy wrote:delicious and beautiful eggs, Joel. I could not figure out what those gorgeous gribene morsels were--until now!
Did you make those or purchase them pre-made?

My local butcher (Ascot Meats at Wolf & Camp MacDonald Rd, Prospect Heights) sold me a frozen block of chicken skin at 98c/lb. Realistically, highway robbery, but still cheap. I followed the directions found on the net (google Gribenes Recipe), using the ones where most of the fat is drained before adding the onions and frying the skin crisp, so that I'd have a more neutral fat to work with in the future. I've got less than two cups of schmaltz, and about three more cups of gribenes (vacuum sealed in the freezer), from what was listed as 2.65 lbs of chicken skin (the smallest chunk he was able to saw off a larger brick).

Doppelbock Bread:
3 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 12-ounce bottle Spaten Optimator, or another beer in the doppelbock style (or use Samuel Smith or another English brown ale).

1. Heat the oven to 350. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with a little oil or butter. Whisk together the flours, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add the oil or butter and beer, and stir just until everything is combined.

2. Pour into the loaf pan and bake until the loaf is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 45 to 60 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan and serving.

Recipe hijacked from Mark Bittman.

Salted Nut Bars
Source: Holiday 2007 issue of The Baking Sheet

Shortbread Layer:
3C Unbleached AP Flour (recipe suggests that whole wheat could be used for some or all)
1.5C brown shugar
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 tsp salt
Combine in mixer with paddle, pat into half-sheet (13x18) pan (line the pan with foil first for easy removal). Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned

Topping
4 C (1 lb, 5 oz) salted mixed nuts
.75 C (9 oz) corn syrup
3 Tbs (1.5 oz) unsalted butter
1.5 C (9 oz) butterscotch chips
Sprinkle nuts over shortbread. Combine corn syrup, butter, chips in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until boiling, stir constantly (make sure the butterscotch chips are mixed in -- some brands will keep their shape at high temps). Boil 2 minutes, then pour over nuts and return to the over for another 10-12 minutes, until it's golden brown and bubbly. Cool for an hour.

migliaccio dolce di semolino (recipe please?

in case anyone is interested: STRAWBERRY LEMONADE

i'm sorry i can't give exact amounts. i just started with my container about 1/2 full of water (for the picnic that was 2 large buckets). i made a rich simple syrup (2:1 sugar and water brought to boil then cooled). i pureed fresh strawberries in the food processor. i used 2# of strawberries per bucket. i squeezed lemons and a few limes. then i just added them all slowly to the water until it tasted 'right'; a pretty subjective standard. i wanted the lemons to be balanced with the strawberries so i could taste both, and just sweet enough so i didn't wince when i drank it, but not as sweet as store bought lemonade.

to make this starting with store bought lemonade, i'd just suggest having a few fresh lemons handy in case after adding the pureed strawberries to the lemonade it tastes too sweet. then you can balance it out with the fresh lemon juice.
justjoan

Coca Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Icing and the brown butter cookies...recipe please?

Corn from mhays and I:

Von Bergen's Country Market
9805 Route 173 Hebron, IL 60034
Tel: 815/648-2332
(Between Richmond and Hebron, just along the Illinois-Wisconsin border)

Regards,

razbry wrote:Coca Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Icing and the brown butter cookies...recipe please?

i'm sorry, but i'm not sharing the cookie recipe. i will post the tomato tart recipe later this week, and i posted the strawberry lemonade already, so please don't hate me.... justjoan

I don't know JustJoan...it's gonna take me a while to get over it!

Thai Obsessed--LOVED the Naem Khao Thawt--even if I was too full to eat it until Monday. It was gorgeous! Please share your recipe if possible. Thanks!!!

razbry wrote:migliaccio dolce di semolino (recipe please?

Hi razbry,

sure, I'm so glad you liked the cake! As I understand it, we can reproduce the ingredient list from a published recipe exactly, but we need to rephrase the instructions. So here it is:

Migliaccio dolce di semolino – Campania
from La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli, 2009)

Ingredients:
¼ c (4T) unsalted butter
5 T sugar
4 c whole milk
grated zest of 1 lemon and peel of 1 lemon, cut in strips
1 cinnamon stick
¾ c coarse semolina
5 large eggs, 4 of them separated
¼ c citrus liqueur or limoncello
1 2/3 c ricotta
confectioners’ sugar

Prepare a baking pan by rubbing the bottom and sides with butter and then dusting it with sugar.

Put the milk, cinnamon stick, lemon peel, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the semolina. Return the pan to heat and let boil for 5 minutes, stirring to break up any lumps. Take off the heat, beat in the butter and let cool.

Once the mixture is cool, add the 1 whole egg and 4 yolks, reserving the whites. Take out the cinnamon stick and lemon peel. Add the limoncello or other liqueur, the ricotta, and the lemon zest. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter, then pour the batter into the baking pan.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Turn out onto a plate and top with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
____________________________________________________________________
(from Amata:)
IMPORTANT NOTE:

This recipe does not specify the size of the baking dish. I used a springform pan 9” in diameter, 2.5” deep, which was perfect for the quantity of batter. However, the cake required much more baking time – probably an hour and 20 minutes (and it could have used a little more time, but we were late enough as it was!).

boudreaulicious wrote:Thai Obsessed--LOVED the Naem Khao Thawt--even if I was too full to eat it until Monday. It was gorgeous! Please share your recipe if possible. Thanks!!!

Seconded - a beautiful salad in every dimension. And thanks to Amata for the semolina cake recipe - I will be making that very soon.

I just wanted to say thank you to the fine folks at Italian Superior Bakery for baking the crust of my Thai pizza. And to Leela at She Simmers for the Nam Prik Pao recipe and inspiration for the dish. Also to RAB and REB for some beautiful Thai basil and to Skinny Aberration for the lime basil and cherry tomatoes!

trixie-pea wrote:I just wanted to say thank you to the fine folks at Italian Superior Bakery for baking the crust of my Thai pizza. And to Leela at She Simmers for the Nam Prik Pao recipe and inspiration for the dish. Also to RAB and REB for some beautiful Thai basil and to Skinny Aberration for the lime basil and cherry tomatoes!

Thank you all for a well conceived effort, especially the ring leader Trixie Pea!

Regards,

I'd love the recipe for Louisa's chocolate tres leches cake if she wouldn't mind sharing.

justjoan wrote:

razbry wrote:Coca Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Icing and the brown butter cookies...recipe please?

i'm sorry, but i'm not sharing the cookie recipe. i will post the tomato tart recipe later this week, and i posted the strawberry lemonade already, so please don't hate me.... justjoan

Joan--You have broken my heart! I'm not a hater, but....

I posted on my first go at Naem Khao Thaawt here. Apparently, this is a dish of Lao origin, though my only previous exposure to it was at Spoon Thai. I followed the pictorial at Thaifoodmaster.com pretty faithfully except that I made the rice balls smaller and used a lot more herbs. Also, I added a littled sugar to the dressing and fried up some of the shallots for a garnish.
My original plan was to pick up Thai sour sausage (Naem) from PNA after a call confirmed that they generally have it. However, the owners decided to close PNA for the weekend as traffic from the German festival in Lincoln Square made it hard for their customers to park/drive in the area. So I ended up using Vietnamese Nem Chua from Tai Nam.

Here's a pic showing the size of the rice balls--quarter-sized diameter rather than the slightly-larger-than-a-ping-pong ball size I made previously to increase the crunch surface are. The recipe makes way more than the directions state.

trixie-pea wrote:I just wanted to say thank you to the fine folks at Italian Superior Bakery for baking the crust of my Thai pizza. And to Leela at She Simmers for the Nam Prik Pao recipe and inspiration for the dish. Also to RAB and REB for some beautiful Thai basil and to Skinny Aberration for the lime basil and cherry tomatoes!

Trixie-pea, I arrived late and missed your Thai pizza but it sounds great. Would you mind sketching out the details of the recipe?

Laikom, I'd love the recipe for the reubens (starting with the part where I stop at your house to pick up some of that incredible pastrami)

trixie-pea wrote:I just wanted to say thank you to the fine folks at Italian Superior Bakery for baking the crust of my Thai pizza. And to Leela at She Simmers for the Nam Prik Pao recipe and inspiration for the dish.

The mu ping I made was also a Leela/SheSimmers recipe!

CrazyC wrote:The mu ping I made was also a Leela/SheSimmers recipe!

Do you mind sharing a link to it? My Mom talked about this quite a bit.

Thanks!

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:

CrazyC wrote:The mu ping I made was also a Leela/SheSimmers recipe!

Do you mind sharing a link to it? My Mom talked about this quite a bit.

Thanks!

Regards,

http://www.shesimmers.com/2011/05/thai- ... -ping.html

thaiobsessed wrote:Trixie-pea, I arrived late and missed your Thai pizza but it sounds great. Would you mind sketching out the details of the recipe?

thaiobsessed,

I think it came out well for a first time effort--and it was relatively simple. Like I mentioned, I asked Italian Superior Bakery to make a sheet pan of their Sicilian pizza for the base. I brought the bread home and crisped it up in my oven for a few minutes, and then spread a generous layer of nam prik pao over the warm dough. I also pricked the dough with a fork, to allow some of the chile spread to seep into the dough. I topped the pizza with a layer of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes that had been tossed with fish sauce, lime, green Thai chile and a little garlic, roasted pork/rice sausage, and Thai basil/lime basil. It seems like there could be a million variations on this--but really it's about dipping crusty bread into warm nam prik pao. It's a great dish to make for a picnic or pot luck because it doesn't suffer as it sits.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to try your rice salad. I love that salad, but it never occurred to me to try to make it at home. I will now! What do you think about doing a Thai condiment exchange? Everyone takes on one labor intensive Thai condiment, spice blend, curry paste, etc, make big batches, divide, exchange!

trixie-pea wrote:I think it came out well for a first time effort--and it was relatively simple. Like I mentioned, I asked Italian Superior Bakery to make a sheet pan of their Sicilian pizza for the base. I brought the bread home and crisped it up in my oven for a few minutes, and then spread a generous layer of nam prik pao over the warm dough. I also pricked the dough with a fork, to allow some of the chile spread to seep into the dough. I topped the pizza with a layer of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes that had been tossed with fish sauce, lime, green Thai chile and a little garlic, roasted pork/rice sausage, and Thai basil/lime basil. It seems like there could be a million variations on this--but really it's about dipping crusty bread into warm nam prik pao. It's a great dish to make for a picnic or pot luck because it doesn't suffer as it sits.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to try your rice salad. I love that salad, but it never occurred to me to try to make it at home. I will now! What do you think about doing a Thai condiment exchange? Everyone takes on one labor intensive Thai condiment, spice blend, curry paste, etc, make big batches, divide, exchange!

Thanks for the details. I will definitely have to try that. I think nam prik pao is one of those foods that improves just about anything but I never thought to try it on pizza.

I LOVE the idea of a condiment exchange. I am in for that one for sure.

thaiobsessed wrote:I LOVE the idea of a condiment exchange. I am in for that one for sure.

Me too.

=R=

ditto!

I'd love to participate in a Thai condiment exchange . . . any kind of a Thai food exchange.