Chicken stock quest
When I showed up at my friend Janet’s house for a cozy soup lunch recently, I sat down to shallow bowls of amber liquid.
Janet, one-third of my beloved soup co-op troika, has been on a mission. So before we slurped soup, we needed to test her homemade chicken stock. We make homemade stock fairly regularly at my house, although I admit to occasionally reaching for the commercial stuff. But a perfect stock recipe would be a game changer. That’s where you come in. We still aren’t perfectly satisfied with the recipes we’ve tried.
On occasion, you’ve provided recipes and techniques for what I consider some of life’s basic recipes, such as the brownies and chocolate chip cookies — life’s necessities! — that members of my book club tested, before I shared the best of the batch in this column.
This time, we’d like to try your best broth/stock techniques and recipes. We’re obsessed with chicken stock, but Janet would also like to find a trusty veggie broth recipe. And given the season, we’ll be making plenty of turkey stock in the coming weeks. So share your secrets, and we’ll pass along the techniques that work best.
Easy as (sweet potato) pie
Dona Dickie of Livermore thinks her easy sweet potato pie is the answer to Gisela’s recent request for a “really good” version. When Dickie lived in the South, she collected cookbooks. “I combined the recipe from a Charleston, South Carolina, church spiral-bound cookbook and an old recipe published by Dear Abby, and use it when I want to make a really good sweet potato pie,” Dickie says.
Vanilla, nutmeg, ginger and lemon perk up the flavor in the
pie. All the filling ingredients go into a food processor bowl, so there’s little muss.
And for those of you who are all about all things pumpkin, Linda Sue Liu has another dessert. She makes pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. The bars are loaded with the required fall flavors since they call for pumpkin pie spice.
Request line
Miriam Eldridge of San Jose can’t find a Palestinian hummus recipe she thinks she found in the Mercury News years ago. “I took it to a potluck, and it was a great hit,” she says. “Unfortunately, I didn’t save the recipe. Does anyone still have it? I would be most grateful to have it again.”
Ron White wonders if Home Plates readers have a Bay Area source for the powdered orange peel called for in the recent spiced peaches recipe. You can find it online, but a local source would be welcome.
Send recipes, tips and requests to Kim Boatman at HomePlates@ bayareanewsgroup.com. Find recent Home Plates recipes online at www. mercurynews.com/tag/ home-plates.