Anise Twists (Italian Anise Sweet Bread)

March 27, 2018

I really don’t know what to call these little breads any longer.

Growing up we always called them Biscotti. The Italian word biscotti, which is plural for biscotto, can be translated as cookies or biscuits. However, in the United States, the word biscotti is now completely identified with a particular type of pastry; those slices of sweet bread that are toasted until crisp (or crisp on the outside and soft on the inside depending on style).

We called those Anise Toasts when I was growing up since they were always flavored with anise in our house. That was how we differentiated these softer anise-flavored sweet breads from the chewier, and toasted, anise-flavored pastries.

**I found this lard at the supermarket. It is not hydrogenated and has just a few reasonable preservatives unlike the hydrogenated lard sold in those blue boxes**

I believe that the word biscotto is derived from the words that mean twice (bis) cooked (cotto) making it an apt label for those toasted things. Despite that, however, it really is used to refer generically to a cookie.

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The Italian word torta is translated as cake or pie or tart depending on the context. Sometimes that context can be provided only by more description. For example, the Italian word limon is used for both a lemon and a lime. To refer to a lime, you could say limon verde (green lemon) if it was not otherwise clear from the context that you meant a lime vs. a lemon. (This would be critical, for example, when providing directions for making a Margarita!) I think limon verde could also be used to refer to an unripe lemon but that’s getting a bit esoteric and, honestly, above my meager grasp of Italian.

But it points out the difficulties with translating seemingly simple concepts, like biscotti!

**Palm Oil is a solid vegetable shortening that is not hydrogenated**

I’m posting this recipe now because my mother always made these at Easter, but their appearance was not limited to that one holiday. Sometimes, for Easter, the dough would be baked in a big braided circular loaf with colored eggs tucked into the braids. Honestly, though, that was usually done by a friend of my mother’s, Mille Verbano, rather than by my mother who almost always made small ones as I now do.

Sometimes this is called Easter Bread but, truly, there are different types of Easter bread all over Italy so that term only works within a very specific socio-cultural context. Although we never called this Easter bread in our house, if a relative did so, I would know immediately what he/she meant.

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I’m not a “dunker” but my mother and her sisters, Aunt Mamie (Mary, really, but as a toddler I said Mamie and that name stuck and became what everyone called her) and Aunt Margie loved to dunk bready things in coffee in the morning. If you’re a dunker, these biscotti are perfect.

**Coconut oil is a vegetable fat that is solid at cool room temperature**

Some of you may remember my soapbox post about hydrogenated fats as a replacement for the lard often called for in traditional Italian pastries. In deference to those of you who do not want to render your own lard (which I suspect is most of you), I was prepared to test this recipe with several non-hydrogenated vegetable fats, palm oil and refined coconut oil. While shopping for other ingredients in Palm Springs I stumbled upon lard…pure, simple lard…not the hydrogenated lard that now dominates supermarket shelves. I just had to try it. I’ve not seen Farmer John lard in supermarkets in Santa Fe but I am hopeful that this signals a resurgence of the availability of unadulterated and chemically unaltered lard for baking.

I promise to test out future recipes with the non-hydrogenated vegetable fats, though!

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan or Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, take a look. They will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

Anise Twists (Italian Anise Sweet Bread)

Shiny aluminum sheet pans work best. Dark pans will cause the bottoms of the breads to get too dark before they are cooked through. For reference, the pictures below show me making half a batch of Anise Twists, not the full recipe given below.

Course

Sweet Breads

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

2 hours

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

4 hours

Servings

dozen little breads, approximately

Ingredients

3 pounds all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons anise seeds plus more for decoration
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound lard
3 packages active dry yeast 21 grams total
1 cup warm water
6 large eggs
1 egg to brush tops, beaten lightly

Course

Sweet Breads

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

2 hours

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

4 hours

Servings

dozen little breads, approximately

Ingredients

3 pounds all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons anise seeds plus more for decoration
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound lard
3 packages active dry yeast 21 grams total
1 cup warm water
6 large eggs
1 egg to brush tops, beaten lightly

Instructions

Melt the lard over gentle heat and allow to cool until lukewarm but still liquid.
Dissolve one teaspoon of the sugar in the warm water, not more than 110°F.
Add the yeast and allow it to proof.
Meanwhile, combine flour, remaining sugar, anise seeds and salt.
Form a well in the center and add 6 eggs and the melted and cooled lard.
Using a circular motion, begin to mix the flour into the liquids in the well.
Add the proofed yeast.
Continue incorporating flour until it is all mixed in.
Add a touch more flour or water, if needed, to create a supple, non-sticky dough.
Knead for approximately 10 minutes.
Place the dough in a bowl. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to double in bulk.
Punch the dough down. Cover and allow to double again.
Cut off small pieces of dough and roll into thin ropes, not much thicker than a pencil.
The dough will have a tendency to shrink back. Roll it out. Let it shrink back a bit. Wait a few minutes for the gluten to relax. Roll it out again. Let it shrink back a bit. Repeat until the dough is the proper thickness. I find it helpful to roll 3 or 4 pieces of dough at a time. It makes the process more efficient.
Cut the dough into lengths. For the straight pieces, the lengths should be approximately 7 inches. For the circular pieces the lengths should be approximately 12 inches.
Fold the lengths of dough in half and twist few times.
Put on ungreased sheet pans, either straight or in circles.
Brush each with beaten egg. Sprinkle with additional anise seeds.
Invert another sheet pan on top. Allow the bread to rise an hour.
Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
Remove to wire racks to cool.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Jamaican Easter Bread (Bun)

4 Comments

March 23, 2018

Google and Wikipedia and Bing have all let me down!

Often when I’m writing a blog, I’ll do a search or two to shore up some facts.

In this instance, I was trying to find a picture of a product and to confirm my understanding of exactly what it is. That product is New Sugar.

My searches turned up nothing.

Back in college, I would buy new sugar on trips to the West Indies. The stuff I bought was sold in cans. It was dark brown, partially crystalized and partially a thick liquid. It was not as dark or as thick as molasses. My recollection is that new sugar is basically sugar cane juice boiled down until it thickens and some of the sugar crystallizes.

It’s what my recipe for Jamaican Easter Bread (aka “Bun”) calls for.

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Long ago, when my meager supplies of new sugar were exhausted and I was no longer going to the West Indies on a regular basis, I created a substitute for new sugar that fooled even my Jamaican friends. (Hint, it’s in the recipe below.)

If my recipes contain a substitute for a difficult-to-find ingredient, I like to make the substitution clear and to provide directions on how to use the original ingredient if available.

In my blog entries, I try to provide some sort of personal or cultural or social context for each recipe. In this instance, I wanted to highlight new sugar.

I was about to give up when I tried different search terms. I had only known it as New Sugar, but, finally, searching on “Wet Sugar” got me one website that had what I was looking for.

The website confirmed my understanding of what new sugar, aka wet sugar, is: boiled sugar cane juice. It also confirmed that it is much more difficult to find than it was 30-50 years ago. I hate to admit it, but I was buying new sugar more than 40 years ago!

My recipe for Bun (that’s really what it’s called in Jamaica…just Bun) came from Valrie Tracey a Jamaican friend from college. Valrie and I and my roommate, Ray Hugh from Guyana, were close friends in college. Though I’ve lost touch with Valrie, Ray and I are still in touch via Facebook. And, yes, her name is spelled Valrie, apparently due to an error on her birth certificate as her parents intended for her name to be Valerie!

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In addition to new sugar, Valrie’s recipe called for “Mixed Spice,” a commonly used mixture in the cooking of Britain and many former British colonies. I don’t like using spice combinations that I haven’t made myself, like pumpkin pie spice or curry powder. If the brand goes out of existence or changes its formula one can’t recreate the dish exactly the same way again. For that reason, starting in college, I worked out my own formulas for spice mixtures that I used on a regular basis.

Rather than have you make a batch of Mixed Spice before making a batch of Bun, I added the individual spices, in the correct amounts, to the recipe.

After resurrecting this recipe from one of my two 5 x 7 metal index card boxes of recipes that I started back in college and sharing the Bun with a number of friends, I began to seriously wonder why I hadn’t made it in over 40 years!

I can assure you, I won’t wait long to make it again.

I like to toast the Bun and add some butter and jam but in Jamaica it would often be served with a wedge of cheese. However you serve it, I’m certain you’ll enjoy it.

Jamaican Easter Bread (Bun)

If you can find new sugar (also known as wet sugar) you can use 2 ½ cups of new sugar in place of the brown sugar and molasses. The dough for this version of Bun is quite wet, more like cake batter than bread dough. When I was making this back in college days and had to mix it by hand, I added enough flour to make a dough that could be kneaded. With a stand mixer, I allow the mixture to be wet. You might want to try both variations and see which you prefer.

Course

Sweet Breads

Cuisine

West Indian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

90 minutes

Passive Time

2 hours

Servings

loaves

Ingredients

Bread

1 quart whole milk
3 pounds all purpose flour
3 packages active dry yeast (21 grams)
2 pounds dark brown sugar less ½ cup
1/4 pound butter at room temperature, cut in pieces
1/2 cup molasses not blackstrap
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons almond essence
2 teaspoons rosewater
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon caraway seed crushed
1 teaspoon anise seed crushed
2 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 pound raisins
1/2 pound dry currants
1/2 pound candied cherries

Glaze

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Course

Sweet Breads

Cuisine

West Indian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

90 minutes

Passive Time

2 hours

Servings

loaves

Ingredients

Bread

1 quart whole milk
3 pounds all purpose flour
3 packages active dry yeast (21 grams)
2 pounds dark brown sugar less ½ cup
1/4 pound butter at room temperature, cut in pieces
1/2 cup molasses not blackstrap
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons almond essence
2 teaspoons rosewater
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon caraway seed crushed
1 teaspoon anise seed crushed
2 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 pound raisins
1/2 pound dry currants
1/2 pound candied cherries

Glaze

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Instructions

Bread

Scald the milk by heating over medium high heat, stirring frequently to prevent a skin from forming, until bubbles begin to foam up around the side.
Allow the milk to become lukewarm (approximately 110°F).
Combine lukewarm milk, yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar from the amount above, and 1 pound of flour in the bowl of a mixer.
Using the paddle, mix well then allow the sponge to sit, covered, until it doubles in bulk.
After the sponge has doubled, mix in 1/3 of the remaining flour and 1/3 of the remaining sugar.
When combined, add the butter, molasses and all the spices and flavorings. Mix well.
Add ½ of the remaining flour and ½ of the remaining sugar. Mix well.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Add the remaining flour and sugar. Mix for about 10 minutes on medium speed.
Mix in the fruit.
Divide the batter into 4 well-buttered 8” x 4” bread pans. Cover and sit at room temperature for about an hour. The batter will not really rise but the yeast is the only leavening so it needs to have time to make air bubbles that can expand and leaven the bread.
Bake at 300°F for approximately 90 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.

Glaze

When the bread is nearing completion, make the glaze by bringing the sugar and water to a boil and simmering a few minutes until syrupy.
As soon as the bun comes out of the oven, brush some of the glaze on top. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pans.
Remove the bun from the pans and brush with more glaze. Allow to cool another 10 minutes.
Brush with remaining glaze and cool completely.

Recipe Notes

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Pancetta

Philadelphia-Style Tomato Pie

2 Comments

March 14, 2018

Like many psychiatry residents, I used to moonlight to make extra money.

The money was good and the work was usually not difficult. Many moonlighting jobs required being on-premises overnight. Most of the time, this usually just involved sleeping but, again, not always.

One of my easier moonlighting jobs was at a private psychiatric hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs. I had to do the histories, physicals, and psychiatric evaluations on the newly admitted patients and then be available for any issues that came up during my shift. Usually I got to sleep all night.

This was in stark contrast to one of my other moonlighting jobs at the crisis service that covered a swath of northeast Philadelphia. The patients were more acute and admissions unplanned. Sleep was elusive.

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One morning as I was finishing up some work on one of the units at the private psychiatric hospital I spied a pizza box in the staff lounge, clearly intended for anyone who wanted to have some.

I opened the box and was presented with my first tomato pie, basically a focaccia topped with a prodigious amount of a jam-like tomato sauce. There was no cheese and there were no toppings.

I had never heard of tomato pie like this. Sometimes the term tomato pie was applied to a run-of-the mill pizza, usually by my Uncle Joe, but this was a whole different creation.

Not only was it naked, except for the tomato sauce, the sauce was very dense (almost like tomato paste) and thickly applied to the dough.

**Good quality tomato puree is essential for this sauce. I prefer imported Italian tomato puree, called passato (or passata) (both are correct) di pomodoro**

Growing up, a regular mid-morning Sunday snack (after church and before our major meal of the day around 1:00 or so) was a bowl of my mother’s long-simmered tomato sauce that was almost always bubbling away on the stove on Sunday mornings and a stack of bread to dip into it. Italian bread was preferred but I’d make do with American “slice” bread if need be…often six slices…to hold me over until mealtime.

Tomato pie was heaven-made for someone like me. It was bread and sauce in an easy-to-eat package. No bowl or dipping required.

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It’s pretty astounding to realize that I had lived in Philadelphia for about 11 years before encountering my first tomato pie. I don’t really understand why. Two of the bastions of Philadelphia tomato pie are on Ninth Street, an area that I started going to my freshman year in college.

This article provides some interesting background on Philly-style Tomato Pie.

I’m a big fan of making dough for pizza and focaccia in my bread machine. If you don’t have a bread machine, use a mixer with a dough hook. Failing that, some elbow grease and a smooth kitchen counter will do the trick.

Philadelphia-Style Tomato Pie

Tomato Pie is a thick crust pizza dough topped with copious amounts of very thick tomato sauce. No cheese is put on the pie before baking. Some folks sprinkle grated Pecorino on the finished pie. It is usually served at room temperature. If the garlic taste in the sauce is too strong for you, the garlic can be sautéed in a small amount of olive oil before mixing into the tomato puree mixture. It is best to make the sauce a day in advance and refrigerate it. If you don’t have a bread machine, mix the dough in a mixer with a dough hook for about 10 minutes after the dough comes together. You can also mix it by hand which will give you a bit of an upper-body workout.

Course

Pizza, Flatbreads, and Savory Tarts, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian-American

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

35 minutes

Passive Time

24 hours

Servings

pieces

Ingredients

Sauce

2 cups tomato puree
1 x 6 ounce can tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1 teaspoon salt plus more to taste if needed
1 teaspoon sugar

Dough

680 g bread flour
440 ml water
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
45 ml olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast or one package

Assembly

2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil to oil sheet pan

Course

Pizza, Flatbreads, and Savory Tarts, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian-American

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

35 minutes

Passive Time

24 hours

Servings

pieces

Ingredients

Sauce

2 cups tomato puree
1 x 6 ounce can tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1 teaspoon salt plus more to taste if needed
1 teaspoon sugar

Dough

680 g bread flour
440 ml water
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
45 ml olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast or one package

Assembly

2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil to oil sheet pan

Instructions

Sauce

Grate the garlic on a Microplane grater or crush to a paste.
Combine all the ingredients for the sauce.
Cover the sauce and refrigerate overnight.
Before using, taste and adjust seasoning.

Dough

Prepare the dough using the dough cycle of the bread machine.
At the end of the cycle put the dough into an oiled bowl or covered container and allow to rise until doubled.

Assembly

Oil a half-sheet pan (13" x 18") with a few tablespoons of olive oil.
Stretch dough into the pan.
The dough will spring back. Stretch it out then allow it to rest a few minutes. Stretch more, then allow it to rest a few minutes. With resting in between stretches, the gluten will relax and the dough won't spring back.
Cover the pan. I invert another half-sheet pan on top.
Allow to rise until doubled, approximately 30 minutes.
Spread all of the sauce on top.
Bake at 350°F until crust is browned and sauce is thick, approximately 35-45 minutes.
Cool in the pan.
Cut into squares and serve at room temperature.
Sprinkle with grated Pecorino cheese, if desired, once cool.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Frittata di Spaghetti (Frittata with Spaghetti)

4 Comments

March 9, 2018

Although I typically heat up left over pasta and have it for lunch, it definitely pales in comparison to the freshly made dish.

In the pre-microwave days of my youth, leftover pasta was heated gently in a sauté pan with a little bit of water added. Now, the microwave makes quick work of the same task.

If you have leftover pasta, though, consider turning it into a frittata. I think it constitutes an entirely new dish, and not leftovers, because it’s being turned into something totally different.

**A slice of frittata with a few Calabrian oil-cured peppers on the side**

We eat so much pasta in our house that if we turned the leftovers into frittate (the plural of frittata) our dinners would alternate between pasta and frittata almost every day of the week! That’s why some of the leftover pasta is simply heated up for lunch.

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A frittata is often referred to as an Italian omelet. But an omelet it most definitely is not. It is cooked using a different technique with a different intended outcome.

Calling a frittata an Italian omelet is like calling everything made from ground beef a hamburger. (OK, off my soapbox for now.)

You can use most any combination of pasta and sauce for a frittata but you don’t want there to be lots of extra sauce or it will be difficult to get the eggs to set.

Most often, I’ll use a long thin pasta, like spaghetti or spaghettini with either a tomato sauce or anchovies and garlic. They both work well. That said, I’ve made frittate from a wide array of leftover types of pasta. Shape is no object!

If you happen to know somebody who raises chickens or if you have access to freshly laid eggs at a farm stand or farmers’ market this is an excellent use for them. There’s little that stands between you and the eggs, so using really good, fresh eggs is noticeable.

**Crushed red pepper is a good alternative to Calabrian oil-cured peppers, but definitely not as flavorful**

As I mentioned earlier this week, I’m losing the battle to raise chickens at our house.

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A frittata is cooked slowly in a sauté pan until the eggs set and turn golden brown on the bottom. I prefer to do this with the pan covered as it aids in setting the top of the eggs, too.

Once the bottom is set, there are two methods to finish the frittata. One is to put the frittata under the broiler or in the oven. The good folks at Wikipedia think this is the only way to do it. In fact, I would suggest that most Italians do not do that. They simply flip the frittata over. (OK, I was back on the soapbox for a moment there.)

If you’re going to finish the frittata by flipping, however, you need to be sure that the top of the frittata is not runny. It should be just barely set.

In case you missed it, I previously published a recipe for an onion frittata. Although it uses a large quantity of onions, they cook down into sweet, golden deliciousness before the eggs are added.

And…before we leave the subject of leftovers…leftover frittata makes a great filling for a sandwich, especially with a few oil-cured Calabrian peppers!

Frittata di Spaghetti (Spaghetti Frittata)

This is a wonderful Italian way to use leftover pasta by turning it into something completely different. The proportions are approximate and will depend on how much pasta is leftover. The pictures show this being made with about half a pound (uncooked weight) of spaghettini with anchovy and garlic (see the Notes section below for a link to the recipe) but it works equally well with most pastas and sauces, including tomato sauce. Use 8 eggs if you have a larger amount of leftover pasta or if you need to stretch the dish to feed more. Use either onion or garlic as the aromatic. Which you choose will depend on which better compliments the pasta. In this case, because the sauce had a lot of garlic, I chose onion to add a bit of a sweet note. If using a tomato sauce, I would have chosen garlic. Whether or not to use Parmesan cheese follows the same logic. Italians feel that cheese rarely goes with fish, like the anchovies in this sauce, so I didn’t use it.

Course

Breakfast and Brunch, Mains, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/2 pound leftover cooked pasta with some sort of sauce Note: 1/2 lb is the uncooked weight
6 eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced, optional
1/2 onion chopped or sliced, optional
1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated, optional
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste

Course

Breakfast and Brunch, Mains, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/2 pound leftover cooked pasta with some sort of sauce Note: 1/2 lb is the uncooked weight
6 eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced, optional
1/2 onion chopped or sliced, optional
1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated, optional
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste

Instructions

Heat the oil in a 12 inch (preferably non-stick) sauté pan.
Add the onion or garlic and sauté over medium heat until the onion is soft and caramelized or the garlic is fragrant.
Add the pasta and sauce and heat gently.
Toss the pasta a few times to be sure it heats evenly.
Meanwhile, beat the eggs with salt and pepper to taste.
When the pasta is heated through, spread it evenly on the bottom of the pan.
If you cannot clearly see enough of a slick of oil on the bottom of the pan to protect the eggs from sticking, add a bit more. (Some sauces sop up the oil more than others.)
Pour the eggs over the pasta, being careful to distribute them evenly.
If using cheese, sprinkle it over the top of the eggs.
Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low.
Keep the eggs covered the whole time and move the pan around on the stove, even putting it off-center much of the time, to be sure the heat is evenly distributed around the bottom of the pan.
Cook until the top of the eggs is just set. That is, there is no runny egg left. This will take approximately 25-30 minutes.
When the eggs are set, slide them out of the pan onto a cookie sheet or pizza pan.
Put the sauté pan upside down on the eggs and then flip the whole set-up over.
Return the eggs to the heat, uncovered, for approximately 5 minutes to lightly brown the bottom.
Slide on to a serving platter and cut in wedges to serve.