I always like to share a good apple recipe this time of year, so you can take advantage of the fall apple bounty, or use up a couple of fruits on the verge of going bad.  This is a really unique one from the Manual For Cooking and Baking.

The lovely lady pictured is Hinde Anchamnitzki (pronounce Hinn-dah Ahn-prwah-nit-ski), who published the first Yiddish cookbook in America.  The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is working on translating it, and is planning on building a larger program around her seminal work utilizing their new demo kitchen space.

Below is her recipe for “English Apple Compote” that plays with the sweet/sour flavors that traditionally appear in Jewish cooking.  I’ve tried it, and it’s fantastic.  It calls for “Sour Salts,” which is citric acid; I was able to find it at Williams Sonoma, of all places.  It gives the dish the mouthpuckering Sour Patch kids sensation one doesn’t normally associated with turn-of-the-century food.  Additionally, cooking the raisins in the sugar syrup teases the flavor out of the dried fruits, and give the dish a distinct raisin tang.

The original recipe is below; it was traslated for me by vice president of education at the Tenement Museum, Annie Polland; I modernized the recipe myself.

The original recipe.

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European Apple Compote
From Manual For Cooking and Baking by Hinde Anchamnitzki, 1901.
1/2 lb Sugar
1/4 lb Raisins
1/2 tsp Sour Salts (Citric Acid)
1/4 c Sugar
6 medium baking apples
Combine sugar, raisins, sour salt and water in a large pot; cook over a medium heat until all of the sugar is dissolved. Peel and core apples, and cut them into 1/4 in. slices.  Cook in a large pan, covered, until the apple slices are tender when pierced with a fork.  Add to sugar syrup; allow to cool, and serve.

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If you like, you can pair this compote with a pie crust, like this one made of Matzo meal.  The crust is tasty enough to serve any time of year, not just for Passover!

Amazing event coming up on October 20th!  Let me give it to you straight: $40 for 4 cocktails.  More than that, the evening will be an exploration of locally produced apple alcohols.  You thought you knew cider; well, we’re going to blow your minds with products from new producers making alcohol in traditional ways.  Guest of the evening will include:

Revolution Cider, out of Philadelphia, who produces a unique hard cider inspired by recipes from the Revolutionary era.

Warwick Valley Winery is bringing their intense apple brandy, as welll as samples of the apple liqour (it’s like an apple in a bottle–soo good) and apple cider.

Cornelius Applejack has generously donated their artisinal, small batch applejack–generally considered some of the best on the market.

All this and so much more, including cider history and cocktail lessons!  Full details below; get your tickets here!

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Thursday, October 20
The Big Apple:  Historic Cocktails with Regional Apple Alcohols
7:00 p.m. @ The Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street Brooklyn, New York
Ticket: $30 BHS members/$40 non-members. Purchase your ticket here.

Apple cider, apple brandy, and applejack are complex alcohols that are infinitely mixable. We’re going inspire you to add them to your liquor cabinets with a night of nineteenth-century cocktails!

The evening will begin with a cup of Apple Punch, which features slices of crisp New York apples steeped in wine. While sipping drinks, guests will hear a short talk on the history of apple alcohol in New York. Afterward, participants will learn how to make three historic apple cocktails: the refreshing, spicy Jersey Cocktail; the warm and comforting Apple Toddy; and the sweet, meringue-like Tiger’s Milk Punch. These drinks will feature local apple alcohols made from traditional recipes. Participants will work with educators in small groups, learning about the history of each drink as they imbibe their handmade cocktails. Additionally, local apple alcohol producers will be on hand to talk about their products and the state of the apple industry today.

Generous donations have been made to this event by Revolution Cider, Warwick Valley Winery, and Cornelius Applejack.

This event is part of Glynwood’s Cider Week, which seeks to cultivate an appreciation for hard cider. Glynwood preserves apple orchards in the Hudson Valley by promoting the production of hard cider and apple spirits. Learn more at www.glynwood.org.

This event is part of BHS’s Brooklyn Food Stories. Advanced ticket purchase recommended as the event will fill up. Ticket: $30 BHS members/$40 non-members. Purchase your ticket here.

My first foray in to vegan cookery: Tomato, kale, and spinach soup with toasted pine nuts and raw radishes.

After a mid-morning snack of almond butter with maple syrup on whole wheat bread, I got started on my first vegan lunch.  I was very apprehensive of my first two days of veganism; No Animal Food, while presenting some very convincing points, also presents some truly horrendous recipes.  For example, my lunch of Spinach Soup No. 1

Apple Bread 2 lbs. entire wheat meal doughed with 1 lb. apples, cooked in water to a pulp…prepared as follows: Mix ingredients with water into stiff dough; knead well, mould, place in bread tins, and bake in slack oven for from 1½ to 2½ hours (or weigh off dough into ½ lb. pieces, mould into flat loaves, place on flat tin, cut across diagonally with sharp knife and bake about 1½ hours).

These instructions aren’t as clear as they could be, so here are my proportions (quantities halved):

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Apple Bread

Dinner: Brown!  Roasted squash, nut roast, and apple bread.

Baked Bananas- Prepare the desired number by washing and cutting off stalk, but do not peel. Bake in oven 20 minutes, then serve.

Pretty weird…Baked banana.

This week’s episode of Appetite City focuses on Delis, a take-out tradition brought by the Germans and appropriated by Eastern-European Jewish immigrants. I cook up one of the BEST FOODS EVER: Apple Pancakes from the now defunct Reuben’s Restaurant.

I’ve done a post on Apple Pancakes before; so for recipes and more history on the dish, go here. They are well worth making–and reviving. When the cameras turned off, the crew of Appetite City descended upon the plate of Apple Pancake like a pack of ravenous lions, a swarm of hungry ants, or some sort of other voracious animal. The pancakes were a hit.

I had a viewing party at my apartment last night and cooked Apple Pancakes with the same results: swarms of my friends devouring them burning hot from communal plates.  I also served up another deli favorite, an authentic New York Egg Cream. Egg Creams, any New Yorker knows, contain neither eggs nor creams; and can only be authentically made with “Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup” (available locally at Economy Candy and online).   The formula is 2 tablespoons U-Bet Chocolate syrup mixed with 1 cup of whole milk and topped off with a 1/2 cup plain seltzer. I used a long, bar spoon to blend the syrup and milk before adding the seltzer; and, in a possible Egg Cream first, I added an ounce (or two) of rum.  Delicious.

The Apple Pancake: Apples fried in a sweet batter, covered in a buttery, caramel crust.

In June, the Lower East Side Tenement museum held its annual benefit, themed around the multi-cultural food of the New York.  It featured vendors and restaurateurs cooking up some of the best food in five boroughs:  Tortilleria Nixtamel; Orwasher’s Bakery; Ma Peche; Murray’s Cheese; The Brooklyn Brewery and many more.  I was invited to do a little food demo, so I wanted to do something flashy: I decided on Reuben’s Apple Pancake.

Reuben’s Restaurant was one of the iconic eateries that haunted midtown from the turn of the century until 1966, when it shut its doors (debatable–it survived at a different location with a different owner until 2001).  A kosher-style deli, it was the type of place that the children and grandchildren of Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants would eat alongside stars of stage and screen; sometimes, the two were one in the same.  It was most well know for its sandwiches named for celebrities–yes, it was that kind of place, one of the ones from which all other celebrity themed sandwich shops descended.  Most notably, “The Reuben.”  Concocted by the restaurant’s owner for some hungry young starlet, it was a mighty stack of multiple meats, cheese and french dressing, that is arguably the grandfather of the Reuben we know today.

In the 1960s, New York was barreling towards bankruptcy, an economic inevitable that took many of New York’s most notable restaurants with it.  The same decade saw the decline and shuttering of Reuben’s,  Horn & Hardart’s Automat, Schrafft’s, and more.  After closing, Reuben’s still sold their famous cheesecakes via mail order.  But the restaurant was famous for another dessert that could not be purchased over phone lines: The Apple Pancake.

The apple pancakes had to be made fresh, by guys in the kitchen who had been doing it for thirty years and had built huge biceps from flipping endless steel skillets.  The pancake was a mixture of apples and cinnamon, cooked in a batter.  What made it exceptional was the process by which it was cooked:  the pancake was flipped in its skillet five or six times.  Before each flip, butter was scooped into the skillet and the topside of the pancake sprinkled with sugar.  When the pancake was fliped, the sugar and the butter worked together to create a caramel curst that was simultaneosly crispy and gooey.

After giving this recipe a try in my own kitchen, I discovered the result to be something between a funnel cake, an apple dumpling and creme brulee.  It was promptly declared “stoner food” by those who sampled my recreation (and meant in the best possible way).

An apple pancake dripping with butter and caramel is not something that could be shipped through the mail.  So when Reuben’s shuttered, it remained only in the hearts and minds of the New Yorkers who loved it.  And then slowly, over time, it was forgotten.

It is now my mission to bring it back.  MAKE THIS RECIPE.  Below, a video of me cooking one up at the Tenement Benefit.  It features two, mediocre pancake flips, but it will give you an idea of the technique.

Reuben’s Apple Pancake from Sarah Lohman on Vimeo.

Cooked by Sarah Lohman; video and narration by Eleanor Berke

The flip is important to the end result, but don’t let it intimidate you: with a little practice, anyone can flip pancakes like a pro.  Practice with dry beans in a skillet to get a sense of the flick of the wrist.  Then, when it comes time to hurl your apple pancake through the air, FLIP WITH CONFIDENCE.

Above all, make this recipe!  It may be the most delicious thing on the earth.

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Reuben’s Apple Pancake
From The New York Times, 1971: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40C14FD3A55127B93C3A91789D85F458785F9
And NYTimes, 1986: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/11/style/de-gustibus-re-creating-reuben-s-legendary-apple-pancake.html?scp=1&sq=reuben’s+special&st=nyt

½ cup flour
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 egg
⅔ cup milk
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
6 tablespoon clarified butter
1 large cooking apple

1. Peel, core, and slice apple into 1/4-inch thick, quarter-moon-shaped slices. Place in bowl with 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon. Mix well; cover and allow to marinate for at least 24 hours; longer if possible. Stir occasionally.

2. Beat eggs with milk; combine flour and salt, then add wet ingredients.  Mix until batter is smooth.

3. In a non-stick, 9-inch skillet: heat 2 tablespoons butter until it sizzles. Add drained apples and cook over medium heat, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until apples soften.

4. Add another 2 tablespoons of butter. Pour in batter evenly and cook over medium-high heat, pulling sides of pancake away from edges and allowing batter to flow under and cook. Keep lifting with spatula to prevent sticking. When pancake begins to firm up, sprinkle 1/4 the sugar evenly over the top.

5. Add another two tablespoons of butter, slipping it underneath the pancake. Then flip the pancake and cook, allowing the sugar to caramelize. When it begins to brown, sprinkle top with another 1/4 of sugar. Add more butter if needed. Flip pancake again and allow sugar to caramelize on the bottom.

6. Sprinkle 1/4 of sugar on top. Add more butter to pan if needed. Flip pancake once again and continue caramelizing.

7. Sprinkle top lightly with sugar and place in 400 degree oven for 15 – 20 minutes, to caramelize further.

Back in September, I was asked to represent the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at Apple Day.  Apple Day pays tribute history of the Lower East Side, which in the 1700s was  part of Mr. Delancy’s farm and  included a sizable apple orchard.  My assignment was to feature apple dishes that reflected the neighborhood’s immigrant history.

I was immediately put in mind of a cookbook I’ve talked about before: Ba’ṭam’ṭe Yidishe maykholim; or, Tempting Kosher Dishes.  The book is now online thanks to the Steven Spielberg digital Yiddish library.

Ba’ṭam’ṭe Yidishe maykholim is a perfect example of Americanization and assimilation through the dinner table.  Released by the Manischewitz company in 1944, the slender cookbook is written in both Yiddish and English and features Kosher for Passover recipes for classic American dishes like Boston Cream Pie.

Someday soon, I will cook many more recipes from the book. But on the morning of Apple Day, I decided to tackle Matzo Meal Pie Crust.

This recipe starts wierd and gets weirder.  I put my matzos in a bowl and covered them with water until they got squishy; then, with my hands, I tried to squeeze out as much water was possible.  The result was a pile of moosh.  Why I had to do this, I’m not sure, because the next step is to dry the matzos back out.

I toasted the matzos in a skillet.  The recipe requested I use “fat” which means “schmaltz” which means “chicken fat,” which sadly I didn’t have.  So I used a tablespoon of Crisco instead.  Crisco is also kosher and released their own bi-lingual cookbook.

I toasted the matzo crumbles until they  looked dry:

Matzos wet, then dried again, in a skillet with Crisco.

The next step in the recipe is where things took a turn for the worse.  I mixed the toasted matzo crumbles with all the other ingredients which turned it back into moosh. Really runny moosh.  There was no way I could “press it into a pie plate with hands” because it was just liquid.  A mess.  It occurred to me I was using large eggs and perhaps medium eggs were a more appropriate size.  So I decided to scrap my messy disaster and start all over, from the top, with new matzos soaked in water.

I made you puke pie.

The second time around I used one egg instead of two and it was still a runny, goopy mess.  Usually, when something I make looks that much like puke, I call it quits.  But the fact of the matter was I had to be at Apple Day in about two hours.  So I poured my goop into two pie plates and slide it in the oven to pre-bake it before the filling went in.

I put it in at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  In the meantime, I prepared a basic apple filling.

When I took the crust out of the oven, it looked better, but still suspect.  It had, a least, formed into something crust-like.

I poured in the apple filling and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.  This time, when it came out, it looked rather glamorous.  I wrapped it up and carted it off to Apple Day.

In the end, this crust was a real surprise.  At the event, I cut the pie and scooped out a serving to taste test.  The crust was almost meringue-like: sweet and crunchy, but a little chewy, too.  Like apple pie over macaroon cookies.  Really, really good.

To be honest, I’d make this crust again, although I’d try to figure out if I could cut out some of the mush to dry to mush to dry steps.  It was a real shocker that something that looked so much like a throw-up could end up tasting so delicious.

I served this delicious sandwich at an 1864-style baseball game where  I was charged with providing a few period-appropriate concessions.  I was inspired to create this flavor combo after stumbling across this recipe (albeit from 1884) from Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book for Apple Johnny Cake:

Apples stirred in to cornbread? Awesome!  Why had I never heard of this before?

I initially made the cornbread according to the historic recipe; it was very dry, grainy, and crumbly.  Not pleasant. I prefer a cakier, modern cornbread.  So I retronovated: I grabbed my favorite contemporary cornbread recipe (Mark Bittman’s) and folded in about a cup of chopped apples at the end.

A cross section of cornbread and apples.

Cornbread and ham were common foods served at fairs and political rallies in the 19th century, so it only made sense to pair my apple cornbread with a thick slice of ham.  At the baseball game, I toasted the cornbread on a griddle and heated a slice of ham alongside.  The cornbread got a healthy smear of fresh, handmade, sooo-yellow butter I got at Saxelby’s Cheese in the Essex Street Market.  Seriously, one forgets how yellow fresh butter is.

Anyway: cornbread, butter, and hot ham on top.  It was a damn good sandwich.

You can choose to use either real maple syrup or molasses to sweeten the apples; each adds a distinctive flavor.  The molasses has a strong taste, so if you’re a fan of dark sugars and ginger breads, that’s the way to go.  But for a lighter finish, the maple syrup delivers a surprisingly clean and gentle flavor.

***
Apple Pan Dowdy
Adapted from American Heritage Cookbook, 1964 and Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery by Juliet Corson, 1886.

1 9-inch pie crust, store-bought or homemade
5 large baking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
½ cup sugar
½ tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ cup maple syrup or molasses
¼ cup water
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. In large bowl, gently toss together first six ingredients.

2. Use half the crust to line the bottom of an 8- by 11-inch baking dish. Top with apple mixture. In small bowl, whisk together maple syrup, melted butter and water; pour over apples. Cover apples with remaining pie crust by weaving together wide strips, or by simply scattering torn pieces of crust over the top. Bake 10 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and“Dowdy” the crust by pushing it down into the apples with a knife. Reduce heat to 325° and bake one hour more.

4. Serve hot or cold with a dollop of whipped cream.

Newtown Pippins, Jefferson’s favorite apple.

So back in September, you went on a romantic, fun-filled, country adventure to an apple picking orchard.   Overcome will the jubilation a perfect fall day brings, you picked far too many apples.  Now, two months later, the fruits of your labor are still cluttering up your crisper.

The week, we’ll take care of you problem, with a selection of apple recipes.  Start with the Huguenot Torte, or a few pies, then follow along for more solutions to your apple issues.

Polenta is on of those ageless culinary lords, like bread. It has sprung from the  hunger of mankind, and without apparent effort has always carried with it a feeling of strength and dignity and well being.

It costs little to prepare, if there is little to spend, or it can be extravagantly, opulently odorous with wines and such. It can be made doggedly, with one ear cocked for the old wolf’s sniffing under the door, or it can be turned out as a well-nourished gesture to other, simpler days.   But no matter what conceits it may be decked with, its fundamental simplicity survives, to comfort our souls as well as our bellies, the way a good solid fugue does, or a warm morning in the spring.

Bam. I ate mine with a few sautéed veggies.

Dinner was ham. My roommate put it best: “I don’t mind ham, but I don’t…seek it out.” Exactly my sentiments.  Fisher’s describes her recipe for Baked Ham Slice as “One good way to cook meat slowly without feeling completely extravagant…”

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Baked Ham Slice
From How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher (1942).

1 one-inch slice of ham (“or thicker if you can afford it!”)
1 sweet potato for each person
1 cup brown sugar
1 handful parsley
2 teaspoon hot mustard
1 tart apple for each person
1 cup hot water (“or cider, or wine”)

I set the ham slice in a shallow casserole, then spread it with minced parsley and the mustard.  I was skeptical about the combination of mustard and ham, but I trusted Fisher (it turned out to be awesome).  I placed sliced apples and potatoes in the casserole around the ham, and poured in the hot water.  I sprinkled everything with brown sugar before sliding it in the oven at 325 degrees, for about 40 minutes (until the potatoes were tender).

The entire apartment was filled with the homey smells of cooking ham.  When it finally came out of the oven, I was so anxious to eat it, I forgot to snap a photo.  Just imagine a delicious ham, swimming in sweet juices, befriending supple apples and potatoes.

No, I don’t seek out ham–but I would seek out baked ham slice any day.