A review of the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and a recipe for Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats

If you ever ask me to list my favourite food blogs, I will mention ‘Smitten Kitchen’ without even thinking about it. Written by the wonderful Deb Perelman, it is a lexicon of deliciousness – full of brilliant, innovative recipes that she throws together in her tiny New York apartment kitchen. My kitchen is also somewhat compact and bijou, so I’m frequently in awe of the amazing things she manages to create with such little workspace at her disposal.

There are so many things to love about Smitten Kitchen. Deb insists on using simple ingredients you can purchase easily in any supermarket (making her recipes accessible to us unfortunate schlubs who don’t have a Waitrose on our doorstep). Her recipes work (I’ve yet to make something from Smitten Kitchen that hasn’t resulted in utter deliciousness). There’s also the fact that she is the proud mother of what might very well be the cutest toddler ever (which is really saying something coming from someone who isn’t the biggest fan of children). Every time I absorb a new post from Deb via my Google Reader, it’s like hearing the voice of an old friend – a friend who frequently spends her spare time up to her armpits in bread dough.

I’d been trying to get my hands on the Smitten Kitchen cookbook for ages; I even contemplated buying a copy when I was in the USA recently. So, when I was offered a UK version (it has recipe ingredients given in grams rather than pesky cups) I jumped at the chance. And, I’m pleased to say, it’s an absolute gem – the kind of cookbook destined to be plastered in notes, picking up dogeared pages and mysterious stains from overuse.

The book is divided into nine sections; Breakfast, Salads, Sandwiches Tarts & Pizzas, Vegetarian main courses, Seafood Poultry & Meat main courses, ‘Sweet Things’, Cakes (my personal favourite), Puddings & Sweets and Party Snacks & Drinks. That’s over 100 recipes and they all look absolutely sublime. As someone currently trying to reduce their meat consumption, I particularly liked the section on vegetarian main courses. Deb is a former vegetarian and really knows how to make these recipes shine. Not once do you notice the absence of meat in any of the dishes and her Mushroom Bourguignon has already become a firm favourite in my house.

I’ve spent the last fortnight cooking my way through the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and have yet to find a dud recipe in there. The Avocado Tartine with Cucumber and Sesame Seeds has become a firm post-run snack and I found myself scoffing an entire tub of buttermilk-and-toasted-almond-laden Broccoli Slaw in one guilty gulp as soon as I made it. The Potato Frittata with Feta and Spring Onion makes a great weekend brunch (and will win over even the most ardent of egg haters), while the Flat Roasted Chicken with tiny Potatoes was the perfect thing to throw together after a long Monday in the office. And then there’s the Tomato-glazed Meatloaves with Mashed Potatoes – a Sunday lunch assembled in an hour after a post-football cleaning binge – which will be raved about in our house for a long, long time. If there’s one complaint I could make, it’s that you’ll find quite a few of the recipes online, in the Smitten Kitchen blog archives. However, this is a minor gripe, and considering there are oodles of amazing, well-tested and beautifully photographed recipes in there, who could blame Deb for choosing creations that taste good, look great and which she knows will work time and time again?

I’ve decided to showcase her Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats on Little Red Courgette as I made these for mine and Mr McMc’s offices and have never seen a sweet treat I’ve made be snapped up so quickly or receive so many rave reviews (indeed, I know one of Mr McMc’s colleagues is continually pressing F5 on this blog so he can get the recipe for these bad boys – Hiya Terry!) Best of all, these take a mere 20 minutes to make and you don’t even need to switch the oven on. Delicious, sweet-salty complex-tasting crispy treats in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Coronation Street? I told you the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook was something special.

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook can be purchased from all good bookshops. I was fortunate enough to receive mine as a review copy from the publisher.

SALTED BROWN BUTTER CRISPY TREATS (Makes 16 5cm squares – more than enough to feed an office full of hungry people)

You will need:

• 115g unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
• ¼ teaspoon flaky sea salt
• 285g marshmallows (I used the small pink & white ones that you find in the baking aisle of most supermarkets)
• 170g puffed-rice cereal

Make It!

1. Butter (or coat) a 20cm square baking tin.
2. Brown the Butter: In a large pot, melt butter over a medium-low heat. It will melt, then foam, then turn clear golden, and finally turn brown and smell nutty. Stir frequently, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do. Don’t take your eyes off the pot: you may be impatient for it to start browning, but the period between the time the butter begins to take on colour and point where it burns is often less than a minute.
3. Make the crispy treats: As soon as the butter takes on a nutty colour, turn the heat off, sprinkle salt over the butter and stir in the marshmallows. The residual heat from the melted butter should be enough to melt them, but if it isn’t, turn it back on over low heat until the marshmallows are smooth. Be careful not to cook the marshmallows, which will destroy their stretchy softness. You’re looking for just enough heat so that they melt and smooth out.
4. Remove the pot from the stove and stir in the cereal, folding it gently with the marshmallow mixture until the cereal is evenly coated. Quickly spread into a prepared pan. A good way to do this is to use a piece of waxed or parchment paper sprayed with oil – press it firmly and evenly into the edges and corners and smooth the top. Using a silicon spatula to do this works equally well.
5. Allow to cool, then cut into squares and get ready to make new friends.

Christina vs. Food: A few things I ate in New York

A giant mouth image that I saw at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Since my return from New York a fortnight ago friends, family members and colleagues have all asked me what fun-filled activities I participated in while I was there.  While I’ve been trying desperately to appear cultured by telling them how I wandered around the Guggenheim, MoMA and most of Manhattan, the fact is that the main activity I indulged in during my time in New York was eating. I ate everything I could get my hands on. Indeed, I gobbled down snacks like a mega-breasted Pac-Man – only stopping for the occasional pint or to plan where Mr. McMc and I going for dinner. There’s a part of me which feels as though I should be slightly ashamed of my gluttonous impulses, but I was in one of the world’s culinary capitals, it was my birthday, and hey – it would have been rude not to.

The day after my rather epic birthday meal at Momofuku Noodle Bar, we decided to pay a visit to Momofuku Milk Bar in Midtown for a slice of lunchtime Crack Pie. We were served our food by possibly the cutest Barista I’ve ever seen in my life, and we giggled about the sheer awfulness of having to wake up for work at 7am on cold Winter’s days as she served me my food. It was love at first sight, so much so that I didn’t even mind when she forgot to hand me half of my order.

As for the Crack Pie? Well, believe the hype. It might not look like much, but this stuff is fully deserving of its reputation of being culinary crack. Tasting of toast, butterscotch and everything that’s right with the world, it’s a perfect symphony of sugar and butter wrapped up in a sweet pastry case. Its creator, Christina Tosi (one of my baking heroes) says that this is the kind of dessert that should be eaten “with your favourite someone” which is exactly what I did. Mr. McMc and I shared a slice in Central Park while watching schoolchildren chase squirrels and washed it down with some of Momofuku Milk Bar’s signature Cereal Milk (which tastes like a Crunchy Nut milkshake). Romance, a scenic view and tasty pastry products. What girl could ask for more?

Another great sweet treat I tried were cookies from Beurre and Sel, a cookie emporium situated in the amazing Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. If you read Serious Eats, you’ll probably have heard of Beurre and Sel, it being the store set up by legendary baker Dorie Greenspan and her son. I’m a huge fan of Dorie’s recipes – she specialises in simple, delicious food that can be made from practically anything – so I knew these were going to be good. We bought two cookies – a World Peace Cookie and a Vanilla Sablé. When a cookie describes itself as being so delicious that it could ensure World Peace and Happiness you know you’re in for something good, and it didn’t disappoint. Rich and packed full of chocolate, it was firm and crumbly to the bite, a small piece of deliciousness. However, both Mr. McMc and I preferred the Vanilla Sablé – a sandy shortbread which was exquisite in its simplicity. It tasted of butter, sugar and vanilla and was the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea. It is a cookie that I can see myself attempting to replicate in my own kitchen very soon.

I was determined to visit Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side during my time in New York. This legendary deli serves up some of the best bagels, lox (a salted smoked salmon) and ridiculously rich cream cheese you could ever wish to consume. We bought some for a lazy Sunday breakfast and ate them in bed while listening to the football scores on BBC World Service. I also noticed that they served two iconic New York baked products – Chocolate Babka and Black & White cookies. Being a bit of a Seinfeld fan,  couldn’t help thinking of the episode where Jerry and Elaine visit a bakery to pick up some cake for a dinner party  (Elaine tries – and fails – to buy two different flavours of Babka, and Jerry gets sick after eating a dodgy cookie.)  Thankfully for us, when we ate them, we had a significantly better experience than the protagonists of Seinfeld. The Black & White Cookie didn’t exactly like “racial harmony in cookie form,” but it was thick, fluffy and cake-like and covered in sweet frosting. The Chocolate Babka was undeniably the better of the two though – a gorgeous, squidgy slab of yeasted dough enrobed with dark chocolate goo that unraveled into delicious flaky ribbons when cut into slices.

Believe it or not, I did manage to eat some snacks which weren’t comprised of butter and sugar during my time in New York. After wandering around the Lincoln Centre on the Upper West Side, we decided to pop into Épicerie Boulud for a sandwich. Although my Banh Mi was more expensive than it really needed to be (and I found myself paying $8 (!!) for a pint of lager) it was definitely delicious – a thick slab of liver pate wrapped around lovely thin slices of pork and garnished with pickled carrot and radish. Although the baguette wasn’t made from rice flour in the traditional manner, it was still satisfyingly crackly without scraping the roof of my mouth off.

One of the best things I ate in New York, however, was also one of the simplest. It was a Knish, bought from a friendly street vendor near Central Park. A Knish is a little dough pocket which is filled with potatoes, onions and meat and deep fried. I was given a quick education on how to eat mine by a cop who was taking a break from directing traffic by eating numerous hot dogs in quick succession. You should cover your Knish with onions, mustard and tomato sauce, and eat it in the fresh air while drinking in the noises of the city bustling around you. It may not have looked like much, but my Knish was a warm slab of carb-filled comfort; a perfect example of New York street food at its finest.

Not everything I ate in New York was amazing, mind you. I had a terrible meal at a restaurant called Macondo which featured frozen empanadas, over attentive staff and being short-changed by $10. And the less said about Pabst Blue Ribbon, the better (seriously hipsters, why do you drink this stuff? It tastes like barely malted water). But I liked the fact that you didn’t have to spend lots of money to eat like royalty. And for me, that’s what a holiday should be all about.