Grandma's Chocolate Pound Cake

I’ve been angry a lot this year, but I think I was angriest this week, when I watched the President tell America to just ignore the danger of Covid, and suggest that if only you have the will to fight it, you will be fine. Too bad the 200,000 Americans who already died didn’t have someone to tell them to just be strong, I guess? It’s infuriating, and not surprising, of course, to hear such nonsense, but it was also incredibly insulting to those of us who are trying our best to live our lives as safely as possible. And the price of that safety, for many of us, is that when we will see our family again is an unknown.

I live in California, and most of the rest of my family lives across the country, or even across the world in one case. This makes it difficult in the best of circumstances to see each other more than a few times a year, and in the case of my Grandparents, I rarely see them more than once a year, because they don’t fly and they live in a place that is difficult to travel to in less than a day. So, of course I have been missing them, but I’ve also been terribly worried about them, because those of us who believe in science know the risk of Covid increases the older you are.

But, I’m here, in California, powerless to do anything, and cut off from family except for Zoom and FaceTime. So what to do? As I’ve done most of this year, I baked my feelings. I pulled out my new bundt pan and made the chocolate cake my Grandma always makes for us when we visit.

It’s a simple pound cake that uses a very not trendy 46% cacao chocolate, and it bakes up into the most wonderful, delicately chocolate-flavored thing. She usually makes it in a tube pan, which makes a giant cake, but I, mindful of who was (not) around to help eat this, made a half recipe in a 6 cup bundt pan. And then, because I had to highlight the perfect swirls, I iced it, which is probably not what Betty Myers would do but it was certainly pretty.

This cake didn’t magically transport me to Virginia, but it did make me feel just a little bit better, so I don’t think this will be the last time I make it during this Pandemic.

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Chocolate Pound Cake

Makes one, 8-inch bundt cake or one, 9x5 inch loaf cake.

For the cake:

• 1 bar sweet baking chocolate (see note)

• 1 1/4 cup flour

• 3/4 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp kosher salt

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

• 3/4 cup + 1 tbs sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1/2 tsp vanilla

• 1/2 cup + 1 tbs milk

For the vanilla glaze (optional):

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 1/2 tbs milk

• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 6 cup bundt pan or a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Heat chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of boiling water about 1 inch deep. Let the chocolate sit until partially melted, then remove from the heat and stir until completely melted. Set aside to cool.

2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and beat until fluffy, then gradually add sugar and beat until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

3. Add the eggs one at a time, thoroughly mixing in each one. Stir in the cooled chocolate and vanilla and beat well to combine, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the flour and the milk in alternate batches, beating well after each.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely.

5. If you are glazing your cake, combine the glaze ingredients in a small bowl, and pour over the top of the cooled cake or drizzle as desired.

Notes:

• This recipe is best made with sweet baking chocolate, which is not the same as semi-sweet or bittersweet. It has a lower cacao content, which gives the cake it’s subtly sweet chocolate flavor. My grandmother’s preferred brand of chocolate for this is Baker’s German’s sweet chocolate. If you can’t find this, semi-sweet chocolate is probably the best replacement, though I haven’t tried it.

• The ingredient amounts for the glaze above make enough to generously coat the cake in vanilla glaze, though I use a little less and just drizzle over the top for a sweet, vanilla accent. I also glaze right on the serving plate, the better to scoop up little puddles of glaze along which each slice.

Sunday Supper: Sticky, Spicy Tamarind Ribs with Lemongrass Ginger Rice & Cucumber Salad

I don’t remember when it was that I saw a tamarind ribs recipe that made me sit up straight, sometime early on in lockdown. I also don’t remember where? Maybe it was in Bon Appetit, maybe it was the New York Times (tamarind + meat is obviously nothing new), but none of the recipes I went back recently to look for were the one. I’m not even convinced at this point that it wasn’t a chicken recipe that caught my eye.

Whenever or wherever it was, I did see a recipe that alerted me to this brilliant idea, which was to marry tangy tamarind with rich, slow-cooked meat. I made note and went about life. But recently, I realized I had a few tablespoons left of a tamarind paste in the fridge, and decided the time was now to make some ribs!

I don’t cook meat like this very often. I think I’ve made ribs once in the last 10 years, and so it felt a little dangerous to be buying a rack of ribs. Whenever I cook with cuts of meat out of my comfort zone, I always have that nagging thought that I could just as easily burn $20 in the oven instead of waste my time ruining a dish. But fear of the kitchen will not feed you, so I researched cooking times, and about 10 different tamarind, honey, and pepper-spiked bbq recipes before cobbling together something that I thought I could pull off. And anyway, if my ribs came out a little on the tough side, or unbearably spicy, who would know?

The happy news I get to report is that the worst case scenario did not happen, and I stumbled into a pretty spectacular Sunday Supper! The ribs were falling off the bone, the sauce was sweet but tangy and had a powerful punch from the habanero, and the sides were a perfect combo of cooling and starchy to tame the richness and the heat. It would be mean of me not to share.

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Sticky Tamarind Ribs with Lemongrass Ginger Rice & Cucumber Salad

This recipe makes one full rack of ribs, but the amounts are easily doubled if you wish to make more ribs. The recipe has a lot of down time, but a bit of a scramble at the end to get the sides finished alongside the meat. If you wish, you could finish the ribs off first, then keep in a low oven while you give the rice and salad your full attention.

For the ribs:

• 1 rack baby back ribs (about 2 lbs)

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• fresh ground black pepper

• 1 inch ginger, peeled and minced

• 1/2 orange, juiced

• 1 tbs soy sauce

• 1-2 habanero chiles (to taste)

• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar

• 2 tbs tamarind concentrate

• 3 tbs honey

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 tbs tomato paste

For the Cucumber Salad (adapted from Bon Appetit):

• 6 persian cucumbers, thinly sliced

• 1/2 large red onion or 1 small red onion, thinly sliced

• 1 serrano chili, thinly sliced (optional)

• juice from 2 limes

• good pinch of kosher salt

• cilantro, for garnish

Ginger Lemongrass Rice:

• 1 cup jasmine rice

• 1 lemongrass stalk, bruised and cut into 1 inch pieces

• 1/2 inch piece ginger, cut lengthwise into pieces

1. Start the ribs. Heat oven to 275 degrees. Place the ribs on a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil, and sprinkle both sides with the salt and a few good grinds of pepper. Bake ribs, meaty side up, for 2 1/2 hours, or until tender.

2. Meanwhile, in a blender or food processor, add the ginger, orange juice, soy sauce, chilis, vinegar, tamarind, honey, garlic, and tomato paste or ketchup and puree until smooth. Taste and adjust as needed for salt, sweetness, and acidity. Transfer to a small pot and simmer over medium heat until thick and glossy, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

3. Once ribs are tender, increase oven temperature to 400 degrees. Brush liberally with the sauce and bake, bony side up, for 10 minutes, or until nice and browned. While ribs are baking, start the rice: add all ingredients to a pot with 1 1/2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 15 minutes.

4. Rotate ribs to meaty side, brush liberally with more sauce, then bake another 5 minutes. Brush again, then bake 5 minutes more. Remove to a cutting board and let rest 5-10 minutes.

5. Remove rice from heat and let sit, covered, for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork. Make the cucumber salad: in a bowl, combine the cucumber, onion, serrano, and lime juice with a good pinch of salt and toss to combine. Taste and adjust salt if needed, then garnish with cilantro.

6. To serve, cut the ribs apart, and serve with rice and salad.

Notes:

• Tamarind paste, or concentrate can probably be found in the Asian food aisle of your grocery store, or it is widely available online if not.

• To bruise the lemongrass stalk, give it a good whack or two with a rolling pin or something heavy.

Boiled Georgia Peanuts

Gosh it’s difficult to take a glamour shot of these, but I promise you, they are the epitome of ugly delicious! Beige, drab, mushy, sure, but salty, savory, peanutty, addictive? Oh yes.

I’m well aware that boiled peanuts, are…divisive. Even among southerners you won’t find 100% agreement on whether these summer snacks are delicious or just plain gross. Happily, my family mostly falls on the side of delicious. I have so many memories of my Nana pulling off to a roadside farm stand, where inevitably there would be a few men standing over a giant pot of boiling peanuts in the humid Georgia afternoon. We’d buy a huge, steaming bag of them, the scent filling the car on the way home, where we would gather on the screened in back porch and tear into the whole pile. I don’t have much fondness for Georgia summers, but this was bliss.

Unhappily for me, boiled peanuts are difficult to get my hands on out of the South. Oh, sure, you’ll see them on menus every now and then, but in my experience they are usually under-cooked and bland, rinsed of the slurp-able, salty brine that gives these peanuts their special something (maybe this is why I’ve been unable to convince my friends of their deliciousness?). If I want to make them myself, I can sometimes find raw peanuts in Chinatown or out in the Richmond, but for real-deal boiled peanuts, what you want are green peanuts. Green peanuts are freshly dug peanuts that haven’t been dried at all, so they have a high moisture content and are, unfortunately, extremely perishable. I also happen to be slightly biased that Georgia grows the best peanuts, so this perishability is not ideal!

However, two weeks ago I got the best text ever from a cousin in Georgia, asking me if I wanted him to ship me some peanuts. Hell yes I did want that! Last year at my uncle’s wedding, we had a conversation where I lamented how hard it was to get real green peanuts here, and I promptly forgot about it, but he followed through with a full 1/4 bushel. That is about 8 pounds of peanuts!

Two weekends ago, when the temperature was soaring and the air quality was terrible, I set up a small boiled peanut operation in my kitchen, filling up every available pot and appliance with the shells, water, and so much salt. I steamed up my apartment with peanut vapors, but it was worth it!

Depending on how well I can manage to ration these, I’ve got about a year’s supply of boiled peanuts in the freezer, ready for reheating, to be enjoyed with a nice cold beer. I really hope I can convince you to give these a try, but if not, well, more for me!

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Boiled Peanuts

Below you’ll find methods for boiling peanuts three different ways: stovetop, crockpot, and Instant Pot.

For each method you’ll need:

• 2 lbs green peanuts (see note)

• water, to cover

• 1/2 tbs kosher salt per cup of water

• cajun spices or old bay, to taste (optional)

Prepare peanuts:

1. Rinse peanuts in several washes of cool water, then let soak in water for 30 minutes to loosen any remaining dirt and rinse again.

2. Add peanuts to your chosen cooking vessel (large pot, crock or Instant pot) and add enough water to cover (you may need to do multiple batches depending on how many peanuts you have and the size of the pot). Add 1/2 tbs salt per cup of water and stir to get everything mixed together. Add spices, if using.

3. Stovetop method: Heat water to boiling, then lower heat to a rapid simmer and cook, covered, for 2-3 hours. After one hour, taste for salinity and doneness. Adjust the salt as desired, and continue cooking, covered, until peanuts are softened to the texture of cooked beans, and pleasantly salty like a good pickle. Crockpot method: Cook peanuts on high for 6 hours until softened. Adjust salt as needed after four hours. Instant Pot method: Add peanuts, water, and salt to the Instant pot and lock the lid. Set to Pressure Cook on high for 75 minutes. Once finished, let sit for 25 minutes, then carefully release the valve and let steam escape.

4. Serve peanuts warm, with cold beer or soda, and plenty of napkins!

Notes:

• Green peanuts will be the best here if you can find them, but if not, raw peanuts are the best substitute. They will take longer to boil though as they have less moisture.

• Many companies will ship peanuts nationwide, though just beware that for green peanuts, hot weather can sometimes impact shipping. My peanuts came from Hardy Farms.