Notes from the Test Kitchen: Figs Galore!

They're in season, and we need recipes!  It's a request we get in the test kitchen every now and again, as some wonderful fruit or vegetable comes into season and we want to make the most of its abundance.

And so it was with figs.  The kitchen was requested -- last summer actually -- to either create or test various recipes for the amazing figs everyone was finding.  We came up with four. One recipe ran just towards the end of the season last year, an adaptation of Rose Levy Berenbaum's amazing fig and mascarpone tart.  The remaining were held in reserve until the season rolled around again.

Here we are, finally!  This week Russ has a Farmer's Market column on figs, and we've included recipes for a grilled fig salad and warm fig salsa.  But we've got one more for you: "Roasted figs with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and wild honey" from Literati 2. The recipe is adapted from Chris Kidder, former chef of the restaurant (he's since left to pursue other ventures), and was something we just had to share.

Roasted figs stuffed with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and wild honey

1 basket fresh figs, preferably Turkey or Mission, 15 to 20 pieces

6 to 8 ounces good-quality blue cheese

2 tablespoons good-quality balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon good-quality olive oil

2 tablespoons toasted and roughly-chopped hazelnuts

1 tablespoon wild honey

1teaspoon sea salt

1 dozen arugula leaves, preferably wild*

4 to 6 fresh fig leaves, optional*

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Keeping the stem intact, make a cut from the stem toward the base, halving the figs, but stop two-thirds of the way down, being careful not to cut all the way through. Turn the figs 90 degrees, and slice again two-thirds of the way down to the base. Open the fig by gently pulling the "petals" back a bit.

2. Place a small piece of cheese, about a teaspoon, in the center of each fig. The amount will vary depending on the size of the fig.

3. Select a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold all the figs side by side and line it with the optional fig leaves. Place the stuffed figs in the dish, stem-side up. Drizzle the vinegar and olive oil evenly over the figs, and sprinkle with the sea salt.

4. Place the dish in the oven and roast until the cheese is warmed and a bit runny, and the figs are cooked and just browning on the tops, about 5to 8 minutes.

5. Sprinkle the hazelnuts over the roasted figs and drizzle over the honey. Scatter the arugula over the top and serve immediately.

* Wild arugula and fresh fig leaves are available at selected farmer's markets.

- Noelle Carter

Photos by Bob Chamberlin and Noelle Carter

Goodbye to an old friend

When I started at the Times food section, it ran on Thursdays, it was regularly more than 70 pages long, I had a full head of hair, and Donna Deane was the backbone of the Times Test Kitchen. The ensuing 20 years have changed many things, but until recently, not Donna Deane. And now, she’s gone, too—one of the 150 editorial casualties of the last round of budget cutting.

It’s impossible to overstate how much Deane has brought to the section and through how many changes she has kept the kitchen sailing smoothly. Just one measure: she out-lasted six different Food editors, including Betsy Balsley, Ruth Reichl, Laurie Ochoa, me, Michalene Busico and Leslie Brenner.

Noelle Carter remains in the kitchen and is extremely capable. As ever, we’ll continue to test, refine, retest and perfect every recipe before it runs in the newspaper. That’s an obligation that too few newspapers (and even cookbooks) honor  these days. But it won’t be the same without Donna Deane.

If you’d like to post your appreciation for the 28 years Donna worked at the Times Test Kitchen, please post them here. If you’d prefer to keep them private, send them to food@latimes.com.

--Russ Parsons

Bluefin blues

  Got tuna? Maybe not for very long. Tuesday about 200,000 fishing boats — almost the entire Japanese fleet — stayed in harbor on a one-day strike to call attention to the economic squeeze they are suffering due to rising fuel prices. As a result, sales at the giant Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo dropped by 25%.

And Toshihide Kawai of downtown L.A.’s International Marine Products sent an e-mail to many of the chefs who shop at his wholesale market warning that seafood supplies might be limited through the rest of the summer. Squid fishermen struck in June, mackerel fishermen are planning a strike in August and, most important for the Southern California market, the Japanese deep-sea tuna fleet is planning on taking two to three months off sometime after the first of August.

David Lefevre, chef at seafood-centric Water Grill, says he hasn’t seen any real effects yet, though he’s aware of Kawai’s warnings because he’s a regular customer there. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just one more bit of bad news on the horizon.

“Really, it’s kind of like that with everything these days,” Lefevre said. “We’re in a really bad situation where gas is going up and products are getting more expensive across the board.

"The toughest part as a restaurateur is we have to pay more for product but still we’re in such a tight economic market that people don’t want to pay more for their meals. Ultimately, what we have to do is try to make sure we still have great product, and still have it at a price people are comfortable with.”

There may be a silver lining, though. Jesse Marsh, fisheries research manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, points out that most of those boats are longliners that contribute to the overfishing of bigeye and yellowfin. And if those tuna become harder to get, maybe that’s a good thing.

“It will be interesting to see what the long-term impact of this is — whether the increase in [fish] prices will lead to a drop in demand, and whether the increase in fuel prices results in a long-term change in fishing.”

— Russ Parsons

Photo by Mark Boster

Pastry chef tracker

Pastry chef Danielle Keene has left BLT Steak, Laurent Tourondel's Sunset Boulevard steakhouse, for the joint kitchens of the Little Door and Little Next Door, on Beverly.  Keene, who changed toques a month ago, was previously at Wilshire, in Santa Monica, where she started Ice Cream Shoppe Night.  The Culver City-born, Sherman Oaks-bred chef says she wanted more menu flexibility — but that what she really wants is, unsurprisingly, an ice cream shop of her own. All in good time.  Meanwhile, Keene, whose resume includes Water Grill, Campanile, AOC and Blair's, is busy making exquisite macarons (yesterday's included blueberry, raspberry, lavender and coconut-caramel), fig and hazelnut poundcake, strawberry-hazelnut Linzer cookies — and pistachio-lemon semifreddo, since the restaurant doesn't have an ice cream machine.  Yet.  When Nicolas Peter, chef at both the Little Door and Little Next Door, got back in town after a week on the East Coast, Keene said she greeted him warmly: "How was your vacation?  When are we getting the ice cream maker?" 

The Little Door, 8164 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles.  (323) 951-1210; Little Next Door, 8142 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles.  (323) 951-1010.

— Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

The elephants in the kitchen

Getting picky kids to eat their vegetables is an age-old parental problem.  Like age-old: Scientists say that kids are wired to prefer sweet, bland things since they weren't generally poisonous.  (Ironically, they are now.)  Three recent cookbooks, "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld and "The Sneaky Chef" (and its sequel) by Missy Chase Lapine, suggest that the best way to solve this problem is not by talking to your kids or getting them to gradually expand their immature palates or cutting up carrots like palm trees (worked for us). No, the way to solve this is by sneaking purees of healthful ingredients into popular foods. Your 7-year-old hates broccoli and loves fried chicken nuggets?  Great, just hide the broccoli in the nuggets.   

The books have become bestsellers, maybe because of the legal battle they've generated (charges of "vegetable plagiarism," as Seinfeld's comedian husband termed it), or maybe because they've landed some high-profile play (Oprah!) or maybe because, well, it sounds like the perfect solution for health-conscious parents desperate for a way to get their kids to ingest all that magical spinach without force-feeding. 

But the larger implications (ethical, gastronomic) seem strangely, glaringly missing from the debate.  If you hide the broccoli in the chicken nuggets, or the cauliflower puree in the mac 'n' cheese, or the carrots and avocados in the chocolate fondue, aren't you telling your kids — or your partner, as Lapine's sequel is geared towards picky "husbands" — that it's OK to keep eating junk?  Secrecy is not something I want to teach my kids, nor is the nutritional value of a quarter-cup of avocado puree worth that price.

Sure, the recipes might taste good. Oprah sure seemed to love them, and Seinfeld's chocolate fondue was pretty yummy (albeit the consistency of brownie batter, faint notes of avocado), though how healthy it really is I don't know — there are no calorie or nutrient counts in these books. But I want my kids to learn to appreciate the Hass avocados I buy at the farmers market. Or to crunch into a raw carrot with pleasure instead of cooking it for 12 minutes and hiding it in an avalanche of cocoa powder and sugar. Kids don't appreciate being lied to. And they always find out. "I'd yell at you," said my 7-year-old daughter, Sophie, when I asked her what she'd do if I hid, oh, beet puree in her lasagna. "I'd give you a time-out." 

— Amy Scattergood

Photo credit: Collins ("Deceptively Delicious") and Running Press ("The Sneaky Chef")

Plum buckle recipe!

Plum buckle

Servings: Makes one (9-inch) buckle

Note: From "Bubby's Homemade Pies" by Ron Silver and Jen Bervin. You may substitute one-half cup yogurt and one-half cup milk for the buttermilk.

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups thickly sliced plums

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 9-inch cast-iron skillet. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda and set aside. With an electric mixer, cream the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the buttermilk, egg and vanilla until smooth. Scrape down the sides. Add the flour mixture to the bowl while the beater is running. Scrape down and mix briefly,  just until combined.

2. Pour the batter into the skillet. Smooth it out — it will be very thick. Pour the plums over the batter and lightly press them down so they are partially submerged. Mix together the cinnamon and sugar and scatter it over the top.

4. Bake the buckle on a lipped baking sheet for 45 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center reveals a moist crumb with no liquid remaining. Serve warm. Store loosely covered at room temperature for up to three days.

Photo by Betty Hallock

Backyard abundance

My husband and I are accidental orchardists. When we moved into this house, the backyard was already dominated by trees — including a three-story-tall avocado tree, two plum trees, an apricot and an orange tree. The apricot stopped bearing (or so we thought) about eight years ago, so we added a small white peach tree about four years ago.

Suddenly this summer, we and other fruit growers have seen old trees come to life — we had an enormous crop of wonderful Blenheim apricots. I made pies and cobblers, froze purée for future mousses and Bavarians and put up jars of apricot butter. Then, of course, the new peach tree, which had borne only a few dozen fruits in its early years, grew up overnight (as adolescents do). And all the cliches about branches groaning under the weight of fuzzy orbs came true. I made pies and cobblers, jars of pie filling and peach butter and took baskets of fruit in to work.

Now the plums are here. They're gorgeous Santa Rosas and they make a delicious plum buckle and are wonderful out of hand. In past years I've canned and preserved them but this year my at-stove time is getting ahead of my beach time so I'm taking the free farm stand route. We get a lot of smiles and waves and thank-yous from neighbors and passers-by. Sweet.

If the Test Kitchen has time to try it out, I'll post a terrific plum buckle recipe here in a few days. It's a great coffee cake, made in a skillet in the oven, and uses up a respectable three to four cups of sliced plums. Check back.

— Susan LaTempa

Photo by Susan LaTempa

Notes from the Test Kitchen: Recipe testing

Behold the beer cake! Spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, fragrant with lemon zest and vanilla, utterly moist with almost a cup of dark Imperial Stout, it's a creation with components as rich as parts of the original recipe were vague.

The recipe is one of four included in last Wednesday's cookbook review of Tessa Kiros' "Piri Piri Starfish." Writer Vani Rangachar notes the friendly conversational tone Kiros takes throughout her book, and the recipes are no exception. In her headnote, Kiros casually mentions that the beer cake is "Lisa from Angola's recipe."

As with all recipes that appear in The Times, this one came to the Test Kitchen for review and was one of six we tested from the book.  We test each recipe we publish, even those published before. A previously published recipe is labeled "adapted" if we make changes.

The beer cake recipe went through several revisions. First we clarified/translated terms from British to American usage (baking soda for "bicarbonate of soda"), and ingredient measurements were changed from weight to volume to conform with Times style. Then we made the cake several times to be sure of the method. The recipe does not follow standard rules for mixing cake batter. Butter, sugar and eggs are added in logical order, but then the liquids are added completely to the batter before any dry ingredients are incorporated (rather than alternately adding a little of each until both are combined in a uniform batter). The batter looks "broken," a point acknowledged by Kiros, though she notes it at the end of the step after the dry ingredients are incorporated, which we found puzzling.

Reviewer Vani, Test Kitchen director Donna Deane and I each made the cake separately with varying results. We compared notes, discussing how to adjust the recipe to create an incorporated batter with sufficient volume, while staying true to Kiros' recipe. We kept Kiros' method the same, adding all liquid ingredients before dry; however, we moved Kiros' warning about the batter separating to an earlier point (just after the liquids are added), and divided the step into two, adding additional clarification. 

We made the cake again, and it lasted just long enough to shoot before we devoured it.  The final recipe was published and you'll find it here.

— Noelle Carter

Photos by Mark Boster and Noelle Carter

Finding "Finds"

As one of the writers responsible for reviewing neighborhood restaurants for the Find column, I'd like to take a moment to thank Times readers for their scouting tips. We get e-mails every day with your recommendations and we follow up on most of them — often with excellent results. We can't write about every restaurant that does a pretty good job, but even if we don't do a full review, we often take notes on a particular aspect of a place and highlight it in an article (such as last Wednesday's "Delicious Deals") that makes brief reference to dozens of restaurants. Or a place might show up in an article that offers a list of the best of a certain category of restaurants — such as British pubs or Hong Kong-style coffee shops.

Lately, readers have tipped us off to a Peruvian place in Downey (no name, but it's at 9484 Firestone Blvd., (562) 401-1017) and a spot called Goody's, (626) 286-3515, that's been in San Gabriel at 865 E. Las Tunas Drive for 50 years(!). Someone referred us to Pita Fresh Grill in Fountain Valley, and someone else wants us to try the white cake with strawberry filling at Palace Bakery, 2708 N. Broadway, Los Angeles (Lincoln Heights), (323) 225-2569. There's also a place called Utopia for coffee and sandwiches at 2311 Santa Monica Blvd. in Santa Monica, (310) 315-4375, on the list — and a Thai place called Nakkara at 7669 Beverly Blvd. near the Grove, (323) 937-3100. If you get to any of them before we do, let us know what you think.

And I'm looking for recommendations for great date-night vegetarian spots, places that have a bit of ambience, a little style. Any suggestions?

— Susan LaTempa

La Quercia Acorn Edition II: Want to buy another pig?

Last fall I blogged about the acorn-finished pigs that La Quercia, the Iowa prosciutto makers, and organic pig farmer Jude Becker were raising and selling to chefs and restaurants across the country.  While the prosciutto from last year's pigs won't be ready until next summer, La Quercia's Herb Eckhouse has already gotten glowing reports on the first deliveries — sausage, guanciale, coppa, pancetta and other items that require less curing time than the prosciutto.  Eckhouse recently emailed that last year's project has been so successful that they're planning a second.

Acorn Edition II is now underway, with orders being taken for about 100 more Berkshire pigs — up from 50 in last year's inaugural group.  The pigs go for $3,000 if you're a return customer, $3,200 if you're new to the pig subscription program.  (Yup, that's really what it's called.)  But they're going fast — Charlie Trotter just bought two, as did Nate Appleman of San Francisco's A16. 

And for those mindful of this spring's catastrophic weather in the upper Midwest, Eckhouse says that they were lucky: The flooding only slowed down construction on La Quercia's expansion and soaked their basement.  Becker said by phone that his farm was fortunate too; their corn crop was ruined, but "all the rain is creating a bumper crop of acorns."  Becker reports that he's also enlisted his local Boy Scout troop, which turns a profit by harvesting the nuts and selling them to Becker.  So not only will La Quercia's next round of charcuterie be made from Berkshire pigs finished on acorns — but acorns gathered by Iowa Boy Scouts. Wow. I hope they get a special badge for that, like in Italian.

La Quercia, 400 Hakes Drive, Norwalk, Iowa.  (515) 981-1625.  www.laquercia.us.  Those interested in the Acorn Edition program can also contact Jennifer Snierson at The Chefs Warehouse, (310) 909-3316.

— Amy Scattergood

Photo courtesy of Herb Eckhouse