What we’re having: Hollaindaise sauce, 2 French onion soups, gumdrop cookies
Good morning, good company, and welcome to the season of special occasions.
A specialoccasion cake is on the menu for A.E., who hopes you can provide” a gluten-free birthday cake that does not taste like a special-diet cake.”
“For the birthday dinner I am also bringing a side dish, probably vegetable, to go with beef. Does anyone have a side dish that combines potatoes and colorful vegetables?”
HOLLANDAISE SAUCE
We turn now to Hollandaise sauce, prepared and homemade. Teri Purvis purchases Gordon Choice Hollandaise Sauce at Gordon Foods in Franklin, Tennessee. Have any of you found it locally? (The Chattanooga store is now open at 1817 Broad St.) She wrote, “This is excellent and very good and easy.”
If you want to make your own Hollandaise sauce, read no further than this recipe from Mary Lynn Wilson, who began, “This is my go-to recipe for Hollandaise. Since I cut the original recipe in half, I use my mini food processor rather than my large blender. I have also used my immersion blender with good results. Sometimes my sauce is a little thin, possibly depending on the size eggs I’m using or the amount of hot sauce I use, but it tastes great regardless.”
James Beard Blender Hollandaise
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt Dash of Tabasco or hot sauce of your choice (can substitute cayenne pepper too)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
Combine eggs and seasonings in bowl of blender or food processor by pulsing ingredients together. Melt butter until it is bubbling but has not yet turned color. Turn on the blender or food processor, and gradually pour a thin stream of butter into egg mixture. It will thicken and become golden in color as you process. Taste and adjust seasonings to your taste. Hold over warm water until ready to serve. Yield: 1 cup.
DEUX SOUPES
A noteworthy name in the culinary memory of Chattanooga is surely the late Miss Gertrude Oehmig, and we know some recipes far outlive the ones who created them. An example might be Miss Gertrude’s Caramel Cake. Her broadbranched family tree has produced many good cooks in the decades since.
To that point, here’s a nod to another wise Chattanoogan named Betsy Blunt Brown. She encourages us to collect family stories just as we collect family recipes, on 5 by 7 cards, and preserve them in a collection. Why not describe the family setting on one side, the food enjoyed together on the other?
One of Miss Gertrude’s vast network of Oehmig nieces and nephews is Mary Catherine O’Kelley, who today shared her tried-and-true version of French onion soup. And she added this. “I eagerly await Fare Exchange every Wednesday. With all the craziness in the world today, it is the best part of the paper.”
Why is that, I muse? Perhaps this is why. There are many cooks: all of you. There is local color: Southern, often healthful fare, and we all know Chattanooga is full of good cooking. Finally, contrary to the recipes we dig for on the web, you all go straight to the recipe, and instead of promising your recipe’s supremacy over all food anywhere, you trust each other to make that call, in our own kitchens.
And now, Ms. O’Kelley’s soup, “never fail and great to fix ahead of time. You just toss the toasted baguette and cheese in a bowl. It also freezes well.”
French Onion Soup
3 to 4 medium to large
onions
Butter
3 cans of beef broth
3/4 cup water
2 bay leaves
Dash of garlic powder Dash of salt and pepper 2 tablespoons
Worcestershire sauce French baguette 1 (8-ounce) bag of Sargento Italian cheese blend
Slice the onions into rings, and sauté in butter in a skillet until tender.
Turn on crock-pot to low. Pour in cans of beef broth, water, bay leaves, garlic powder, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. When onions are tender, add the onion and butter mixture.
Cover and cook for at least 3 to 5 hours on low. Taste the soup, and if you want it a bit weaker, add water or chicken broth. Remove bay leaves.
When ready to serve, slice the baguette into thin slices, and toast until just crusty. Place 2 or 3 slices of baguette in bowl; cover with cheese and slowly pour onion soup over.
Mary Ann McInturff, from her fund of kitchen know-how, offered another recipe for French onion soup, “good, quick, and not too complicated. Here is one I have used for years from the ‘Pillsbury Family Cook Book’ (copyright 1963). This is probably the second cookbook I ever owned.”
French Onion Soup
4 large onions, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon flour 6 bouillon cubes (I use beef)
5 cups water
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Sauté onions in butter until golden (soft and fairly well caramelized). Stir in flour. Add bouillon cubes, water and Worcestershire. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve topped with croutons or Melba toast rounds and grated Parmesan cheese. (You can substitute Gruyere for Parmesan.) The croutons or toast rounds may be placed under the broiler until cheese begins to melt.
COLORFUL COOKIES
Carole C, though not a fruitcake fan, suggested gumdrop cookies as an alternative. “Gumdrops make an easy substitute for candied fruit, and cookies give you portion control.”
Gumdrop Cookies
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped fruit-flavored or spiced gumdrops
2 large egg whites, room temperature
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream shortening and 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Beat in almond extract. In another bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture, and mix well. Stir in gumdrops.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Fold into dough.
Drop by level tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake until golden brown,
12 to 15 minutes. Cool 1 minute before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.
CAST-IRON CONFIRMATION
Thanks to Marian Lewis for sending the story of a cast-iron treasure, a wedding gift she requested from her beloved Aunt Evelyn in 1958. Aunt Evelyn was glad to share her well-respected skillet, so niece Marian started housekeeping with THE skillet, and she keeps on. “I am glad to say I still use it to fry bacon, eggs, pork chops, steak.” This handme-down has now spent more than 63 years in the Lewis kitchen, and that alone is a recommendation for cast iron.
JUST A DASH
Mary Ann McInturff advised about storing onions. “They need to be stored unrefrigerated in a cool, dark, well ventilated place. (I store mine in a vegetable bin built into my kitchen cabinets with holes cut in the bottom of the drawer for ventilation.) They are best stored away from any apples, as this will make them spoil sooner.”
FINALLY
Thanks to you all — past, present and future — for your place in this kitchen-table enterprise.