This past winter, we celebrated his success.  Here is his baby, shot by Nancy, in Lou’s wine cellar here—a small temperature-controlled room he built in his basement. 

With one successful first batch behind him (the process took a full year), he started another batch.  So we’re going to track his (er… his ham’s) progress for you here on Jellypress.

It began in February with two 25 pound legs.  These are going to take more than a year to cure.  And they’ll need a lot of salt to draw out the liquid.  Last year Lou put all kinds of weights on them to help press out the liquid.  But this year, he devised a new system using a crank machine normally used for pressing wine from grapes.  He’s very pleased.

He flips the ham over every couple of days and turns the winch just little tighter.  Quite rapidly, the ham gets so flat, it’s hard to believe.  Soon, there is no more blood running off.  It stays pressed in salt for more than 2 weeks. 

Okay, that’s enough for now.  We’ll return here soon.  In the meantime, let’s go back into the kitchen for a taste last year’s batch.

Oh and have a taste of soprassata too. 

Here’s to enough salty spicy sweet pork to last a very long time.  And here’s the Lou and his cousin in Saint Agata.

At first I thought, what a lot of trouble to go to for sandy texture. But Cook’s Illustrated’s recipe made the process quick and easy. First you put the eggs (I made two to have enough for another chocolate dough too) in your pot and cover them with an inch of water. Bring the water to a boil. Then take the pot off the heat, cover it and let it sit ten minutes. No time lost there. Meanwhile you can be measuring out your other ingredients.


When the ten minutes waiting time is up, you transfer the eggs with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water. There they sit for five more minutes. Then you peel them and grab out the yolks. Cooks says to discard the white but if you love egg whites as I do, just gobble it up. They’re really good for you.


Now here’s the only part that takes a minute or two extra but is super easy and well worth it. Push the yolk through a fine strainer.


And it works. I was in a kind of heaven crunching these. You will be too. Isn’t it wonderful to satisfy a craving you’ve had since you were a kid? Apparently I am slow on the uptake however as other bloggers, like Cookie Madness, have used this technique in cookie recipes galore including chocolate chip. Go on, try it. And if you do, let us know what you think.
Badass Cookie Tip of the Week: Double your sablée recipe and freeze half to use later as a fabulous French tart dough too.
You can substitute the cooked yolk in any sablée recipe, but here’s my favorite one with the hard cooked yolk included.This is adapted from Nick Malgieri’s incredible book, Nick Malgieri’s Perfect Pastry:
French Butter Cookies (sablée)
Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.
1 stick butter, softened but not greasy
1/4 cup sugar
1 t. vanilla extract, optional
1 hard cooked yolk
1/4 t. salt
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1. Follow directions for cooking and prepping the egg yolk in the text and photos above and set aside. Cream the butter with the sugar. Add vanilla extract if using. Add yolk and mix well.
2. Add salt to flour and add dry ingredients all at once to the butter mixture. Combine gently. Do not over-mix. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in plastic, flatten into a disk and refrigerate until firm enough to roll, at least a half hour or more.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters or a glass. Place on parchment paper or nonstick pad covered or greased cookie sheets. Bake until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. May be stored in an airtight container for up to ten days.


That’s my Papa Max, Rae’s hubby. Never forget to kiss the cook.

If you have a cookie recipe for Laura and Nancy that you think is pretty badass, send it to us and we’ll test it. If it’s badass enough, we’ll post it as a reader’s recipe and you’ll win a prize of Nancy’s book Walking on Walnuts .

see also: One Badass Cookie - Chocolate Chip Cookies

From Eastabrook:

“In Florida’s Immokalee tomato fields, slavery, squalid living conditions are symptoms of system that exploits immigrants so supermarkets can sell winter tomatoes and fast-food outlets can add them to sandwiches. In 12 years, officials have freed 1,000-plus workers.”

A thousand people freed from slavery in Florida over the last dozen years?  All so we can have tasteless pink tomatoes out of season?  The article tells us that if we eat a tomato this winter, chances are that it was picked by someone living in slave conditions.  Estabrook recounts stories of
workers who get their lives threatened if they try to leave work camps. 

Rather than righteously cogitate any further, I want to send you directly to the CIW--Coalition of Immokalee Workers--which has done a wonderful job over the last years. Rather than force a boycott, they work hard negotiating with large food companies such as Subway sandwich company, fast food chains, and Whole Foods, trying to get them to sign agreements that they wont buy tomatoes that were picked with abusive labor practices.  You can visit their website, find more information, photos of conditions, and “take action” suggestions, such as easy forms you can download for letters to companies and elected officials.  http://ciw-online.org Here are some photos from CWI giving a glimpse.  Please take a moment to have a look.  The link to Estabrook’s article is below.

Here, again, the Barry Estabrook article.  I think it’s a great story and so glad that Gourmet did it. 

www.gourmet.com/

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Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

Oda a la cebolla

Cebolla,
luminosa redoma,
pétalo a pétalo
se formó tu hermosura,
escamas de crystal te acrecentaron
y en el secreto de la tierra oscura
se redondeó tu vientre de rocío.
Bajo la tierra
fue el milagro
y cuando apareció
tu torpe tallo verde,
y nacieron
tus hojas como espadas en el huerto,
la tierra acumuló su poderío
mostrando tu desnuda transparencia,
y como en Afrodita el mar remoto
duplicó la magnolia
levantando sus senos,
la tierra
así te hizo,
cebolla,
clara como un planeta,
y destinada ,
a relucir ,
constelación constante,
redonda rosa de agua,
sobre
la mesa
de las pobres gentes.

Nos hiciste llorar sin afligirnos.
Yo cuanto existe celebré, cebolla,
pero para mi eres
más hermosa que un ave
de plumas cegadoras
eres para mis ojos
globo celeste, copa de platino,
baile inmóvil
de anémona nevada

y vive la fragancia de la tierra
en tu naturaleza cristalina.

One Badass Cookie Tip of the Week: As a general guideline, toast nuts that will be incorporated into a dough or batter, but leave nuts that garnish unbaked goods raw so they will not burn when put in the oven to bake. To toast most nuts, place them on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven until lightly browned and fragrant, about 5 - 10 minutes. Best rule of thumb to tell when they are perfectly done? Your nose. When they smell yummy, they’re ready.
Great Aunt Dotty’s Snowball Cookies
Makes about two dozen 1 1/2 inch diameter cookies.
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) sweet, unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour, sifted
2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted and cooled.
confectioner’s sugar, enough for dredging baked cookies.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or nonstick pads and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or by hand.  Add vanilla extract.  Add flour all at once and mix only until incorporated then add nuts. Do not over mix the dough.
3. Pick up small pieces of dough and roll into balls.  Place on cookie sheet about an inch apart.
4. Bake for 10 minutes or more until light brown.  Remove from oven and while stilll warm roll in powdered sugar.


If you toast nuts on parchment paper covered sheetpans, it makes it easy to slide the nuts onto a wire rack to cool faster than on the hot sheetpan.


If the dough gets too soft to roll the balls, place it in the refrigerator for a while until it is firmer.


Warm and toasty looking, straight from the oven. Mmmmm.


Dredge the cookies in the powdered sugar right away while they are warm so it melts the sugar a little on the surface of the cookies and makes a soft, sweet crust.

Got a great cookie recipe for Nancy and Laura? Send it in to us using the “post a comment” links and we’ll test it. If it’s badass enough, we’ll post it as a reader’s recipe on One Badass Cookie and you’ll win a prize of Nancy’s book.

see also: One Badass Cookie - Chocolate Chip Cookies

One Badass Cookie Tip of the Week:Brush cookies with egg white before baking for a shiny, professional looking finish. Sprinkle the egg white with sugar to add sweetness and crunch if desired.
Raisin Filled Cookies
Makes approximately three dozen 2 to 3 inch diameter cookies depending on size.
Note: Allow time to cook and cool filling mixture ahead of time.
For filling:
2 1/2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups sugar or to taste
2 cups water
6 T. flour
For dough:
1 cup shortening (you may substitute butter but the original texture and taste of the cookie will be changed.)
2 cups white granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
1 t. baking soda
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
Egg yolk for sealing dough before baking, and egg white for brushing top of cookies if desired.
7 cups all purpose flour (or 6 cups for making drop cookies without filling if desired.)
1. Combine all filling ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan and cook until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture thickens. Allow to cool.
2. Beat shortening and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or by hand with a wooden spoon, until creamy and fully incorporated. Add eggs slowly a little at a time, mixing well between additions.
3. Combine vanilla extract and milk and set aside. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Using lowest speed on mixer or gently by hand, add dries to shortening mixture in three additions alternating with liquid, beginning and ending with flour (1/3 of flour, then 1/2 of milk, then 1/3 of flour, then the rest of the milk, then the last 1/3 of flour.) Do not overbeat.
4. Divide dough into three disks, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled enough to roll out.
5. When dough and filling are ready, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper, nonstick pads, or grease sheets and set aside.
6. Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick and use a round 2 or 3 inch cutter to cut dough. On 1/2 of the cookie rounds, place a large dollop of filling. Brush egg yolk or water around edge of cookie dough to help seal it, then place a plain cookie round on top and press to seal. Cut a slit in the top dough to allow steam to escape and brush cookie with egg white if desired. Continue until all the dough has been rolled, filled and seal. Place cookies on prepared sheet pans and bake for approximately 15 minutes or more until golden top and bottom. If you double your sheetpans under the cookies and rotate pans during baking top to bottom and back to front it will help ensure even baking. Cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container.


Leave a little margin of cookie dough around the filling so that the top dough can have enough room to seal properly.


Cutting a thin slit like this in the top of filled cookies helps steam escape but keeps the filling from burning or drying out.


Oh baby.


Here is Michele and her brother in a photo she sent me next to the cookies I made for her. How fun is this?

Got a cookie recipe badass enough for One Badass Cookie? Send it to us and we’ll test it. If it’s badass enough we’ll post it as a reader’s recipe and you’ll win a prize of Nancy’s book.

Photo credit: Bruce Ring

Photo credit: Bruce Ring

Photo credit: Bruce Ring

Photo credit: Bruce Ring

Champagne Truffles

Makes about 60 truffles
1 pound bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream or creme fraiche
1/2 cup champagne
6 T. unsalted sweet butter, softened
For dipping:
1 pound semisweet chocolate
2 cups unsweetened cocoa
1. Cut 1 pound chocolate into small pieces and place in a small bowl. Melt chocolate over simmering water or in a microwave oven. Set aside until ready to use.
2. Scald the cream and champagne and pour over the chocolate. Whisk until smooth.
3. Mix in the soft butter and pour the mixture onto a sheetpan covered with parchment paper or a nonstick pad. Refrigerate until you can form balls with the mixture.
4. Roll small balls of chocolate. Keep them cold.
5. Melt the other pound of chocolate. Temper the chocolate (don’t know how? Let David Lebovitz show you.) When all the balls are rolled, put some of the melted chocolate into the palm of your hand. Roll a truffle in your palm, letting it roll off your finger tips back onto the sheetpan. Continue until all balls are coated with chocolate. Chill. When chilled and dry to touch, roll in cocoa powder. Keep stored in cocoa powder in the freezer or refrigerator.