Mysore Masala Dosa

This was the first time I ever "winged it" with an Indian recipe. I mean, it's not as though I threw the recipe out the window, but there was nothing that said "30 seconds later add the" or "2 minutes later combine the", as Madhur Jaffrey is prone to do in my favourite Indian cookbook. Actually the cookbook of hers that I have doesn't have many South Indian dishes. So I turned to the internet with its sketchy, and often missing, instructions for a recipe for mysore masala dosa - my favourite fermented rice and lentil crepe known for its slightly (to not-so-slightly) spicy potato filling.

Ingredients
3 cups boiled and slightly mashed potatoes
2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup boiled peas (not really optional, but I didn't have any, so for me it was optional. For you, well, you can do what you want)
3-4 finely chopped green chilies (I only had red. Well, oops, but that's what I'd bought in bulk at the farmers' market, so that's what I used)
1/4 inch piece of ginger, finely minced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or minced
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 pinch asafoetida
4-5 curry leaves
salt to taste
1 tsp turmeric 

1 tsp cumin 

chopped coriander
1/2 cup grated fresh coconut (again, not really optional, but the fresh coconut options around the city are minimal, and I'm just one person anyway, and that's a lot of coconut to eat. So I kept my carbon footprint relatively in check...or at least let it balance with my purchase of Greek figs. So worth it).

See, there were no actual instructions on how all these things should be put together, but with some other dosa cross referencing, I got the general idea. Besides, you'd rarely see an Indian cook with a recipe...but that Indian cook would probably have grown up in a household where such things as recipes were passed down from mouth-to-mouth, so to speak.

Directions:

Boil the potatoes. Boil them whole if you've got the time, since they slip easily out of their jackets and I think retain more of their nutrients if boiled with the skins on. If you don't have time, peel them and chop them into smaller sections. When a fork goes into them easily, remove them from the pot and either plunge into ice water to cool, or let them cool on their own while you're busy doing other things...

...such as chopping the chilies. I like to take the seeds out before I chop the chilies, since the seeds give pure heat and no flavour, but if you want that burning sensation to come quicker and don't care about the heat, leave them in and save yourself the trouble. Get all the other ingredients ready and measured. This goes pretty fast, so unless you are a chopping superstar whose spices are all alphabetically organized, be humble and do the mise-en-place. Oh! That includes peeling and mashing the potatoes. You CAN mash them after you've thrown them into the frying pan later, but it takes extra time and thing may burn while you're attempting to mash. Then if you're like me you know they're not going to want to mash and you'll start swearing at it and cursing your lack of a decent potato masher, when a slotted spoon would have been just fine if you'd actually mashed the potatoes before you'd turned on the heat...but that's just me. You are much smarter than that. Anyway, mashing roughly is fine. I kind of like the lumps because potato purée dosa has a less interesting, more baby-food-like texture.

Okay, go! The oil goes in the large frying pan on medium-high heat. When it's hot, add the mustard seeds and asafoetida. Wait 30 seconds. With mustard seeds you always wait 30 seconds, well approximately. You wait for them to "pop" and in every recipe that apparently takes 30 seconds. Mine didn't pop...so I cried a little inside and turned up the heat. Maybe my pan wasn't ready yet. 

Then add the ginger, garlic, chilies, and curry leaves and stir relatively frantically so it doesn't burn. 

When everything is getting a little softened and brown a few minutes alter add the turmeric, cumin and coriander. Now you really need to stir since the dry spices will burn very easily. When it's stirred (it doesn't need to cook more than a minute) add the potatoes (pre-mashed!) and stir everything. The potatoes should turn yellow-orange from the turmeric. The oil will get sucked up, as though through a straw, into the potatoes and your masala is done. You can add a little water to thin it and make the potatoes a little more tender if they're a variety that's naturally starchy. Oh! Salt to taste! Very important! There's no other salt in this recipe and the salt really brings it together, so be generous. Garnish with chopped coriander (cilantro) and wrap in dosa. Die from joy from eating so luxuriously, simply, and healthy. Okay, maybe don't die, but experience some kind of blissful state. Please.

South Indian Dosa

The South Indian Crepe. It looks a bit like a doily, I know. After about 4 days of mostly eating dosa I think I got okay at the technique.

My first try looked like this:

Not bad, but not the beautiful lattice work that I like. I experimented with making it thinner, sometimes ending up with gaping holes that needed to be filled in:

but it was crisp and chewy. It's supposed to be bendy, and be able to fold around its fillings but mine never got that way, even 12 or so dosai later. Maybe my heat was too much, or I didn't use enough oil, or the batter was too thick, or too thin...Well, I'll keep trying. Since I'm allowed to eat with both hands (and/or utensils), it didn't really matter that the dosa was so un-bendy.

It's really simple to make. It's just slightly fermented long-grain rice and lentils. Here's what you do:

3 cups long-grain rice (basmati is perfect)
1 cup skinless split urad daal (skinless black gram)
3/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
Salt to taste (a sprinkle or 1/4 tsp.)
Oil of choice

So it's maybe hard to find split urad daal. I went to a place in Pointe Ste-Charles (the equivalent of the Goulds in Newfoundland...kind of) and said I was making dosa and the man gave me a bag of dal. I said, "This is for dosa?" (This was before I actually had looked at a recipe), and he said "yes." Don't trust a man when it comes to Indian food.

It was chana dal, which was fine, because I can make daal (the soup. The spellings of all these things are a bit ambiguous) out of that, and I used it as a tuvar dal replacement in the sambhar (recipe to come). Different flavour, but I like the nuttiness. Anyway, so then I went to Parc Extension and asked a female store clerk where the split urad dal was. "Skinless or not?" she asked. "Skinless, " I said. She pointed me to an unmarked bag around the corner. What's up with not labeling bags? She lined up her hands vertically as she shook her head. Oh! The one next to it! Another unmarked bag that was just a tiny bit lighter but otherwise identical. Yes, that one, she nodded.

"Why do you know about urad dal?". Not "how", but "why", she had asked. I'm assuming she just used the wrong word, but the verbal slip was interesting. It made it seem as though urad dal is something I'm not allowed to know about, as if it's a secret.

"I'm making dosa," I said simply. "I like South Indian cooking". I smiled, thanked her, and left. I like to think that she shared a secret with me.

Directions:
You need to make this the night before or start VERY early in the morning. The nice thing is, you don't need to make it all at once, since it just keeps fermenting on day 2 and 3. I'm not sure how long it's okay to let it keep going, but I felt comfortable using it up to day 4.

Wash the rice and dal in several changes of cold water, swirling the grains around with your fingers like you would for perfect rice.  Drain it and add the fenugreek seeds. Add enough water to cover the rice and dal by about 2 inches. Soak overnight, or about 8 hours.

The next morning, drain all the water again. Put the rice and dal mixture in the blender or food processor, in batches if necessary, and grind to a grainy paste. You can add a little water if you need to.

Put the ground mixture back into the bowl you used to soak it and add enough water to make a batter. Mine was initially pretty thick, so don't be afraid to thin it out. It should coat a spoon thickly, but you're going to spread this very thin, so remember that it's a crepe not a pancake.

Add the salt and then put the batter in a warm, dark spot, covered, for 6-8 hours. I put it in the oven with the door open on lowest heat. I would have normally just put it in with the light on, the oven turned off and the door closed but for the "dark spot" rule.

Now the batter's ready. Stir.

Get about 1/4 cup of oil ready in a bowl with a basting brush at hand, and take a paper towel dipped lightly in oil and spread it over the bottom of a large frying pan. The oil should be barely visible.

Turn the heat to medium and let it warm up. When hot, take a 3/4 full ladle of batter and pour it in the middle of the frying pan. Now sweep the dosa in ever-expanding circular motions with the bottom of the ladle (plastic if the pan is nonstick!) until the dosa is about 8 inches (the size of a small cake pan) in diametre. Tiny holes are normal and just fine. Some kinds of dosa have them and some don't. It's personal taste and what kind of filling you have that determines if this matters.

Once the batter is spread, immediately dip the basting brush liberally in the oil and drizzle it all over the surface of the dosa and also around its edges. Now hold the pan by its handle, lift up and swirl it to make the drizzled oil spread all over the dosa. Careful not to swirl the dosa right off the pan like I did the first (few) time(s).

After a few minutes check the bottom of the dosa. It should be light brown. The first dosa sometimes isn't evenly browned, but don't worry. Years of pancake-making taught me this is fine, and the second batch will be more consistent. Flip the dosa. Cook 1 more minute, or until the bottom is lightly browned. I don't like it soft and chewy, so I made sure it really got enough cooking time, but I think I overdid it because then you're supposed to fold the dosa in half and let it cook 30 seconds more. This is probably an important step I skipped...

You can eat dosa plain, or with coconut chutney. Since I'd have to buy a whole coconut to get a decently sweet-tasting chutney, I skipped it and just went with hot sauce. Very non-traditional. The second dosa was ready at the same time as my potato masala filling (recipe to come), though, so that one got all wrapped up burrito-style...well, cracked burrito-style. Still, delicious burrito-style. The next day I added sambhar. That was when everything in my world got a lot sunnier.

To make the second dosa you need to run a paper towel under some ice cold water and rub it over the pan to remove any dosa debris and cool the surface. Apparently this makes your dosa not break as easily since the pan is cooler. Then proceed as before with a little more oil on a paper towel and 3/4 of a ladle of batter. So easy. 5 ingredients. Go forth.

My First Jam: Figs!

So maybe the title sounds a bit like a kid's story book ("My First Tooth"? I never read those...) but you could have given me a quarter and I couldn't have been any more excited than I already was.

Figs are in season now! Not here, I know, but in California and in Greece. So much for my locavore cred. It's actually my dream to eat a fig fresh off a tree in Greece. California I don't care so much about because it's about a quarter as romantic a notion. Not that I would turn down a trip to California. What am I, well-insulated? Nope. Montreal's cold! By the time the figs get here from foreign lands they're good, but my tongue knows from how good they are now that they could be that much better. It anticipates the sweetness tinged with the tiniest bit of acidity that brings out the flavour that's missing.

So I went to my fruit guy, Leopoldo, in Jean-Talon Market. He still doesn't know he's a my fruit guy. Sometimes I speak French with him, and sometimes I speak English with him, and I haven't gotten up the guts to speak Italian with him because me and him and romantic notions like speaking Italian don't jive. Just imagine us jiving...Ridiculous.

He had boxes of fresh figs from both California (green and black kinds) and Greece (just black). The Greek ones were larger, plumper, and looked juicier. The Californians were slightly cheaper and smaller. So I bought a basket of green Californians, a basket of black Californians, and a box of Greeks. Into my Granny cart the box went, and the delicate baskets over my shoulder. Of course, there was no way I was waiting the 50 minute commute home to sample the figs...they are sprayed because they're imported, I think, so I did find some clean running water first.

Leopoldo said his favourites were the Greeks, but this is the first time we disagree. The Greeks were the most beautiful inside, and the juiciest, but the flavour was lacking. Looks were deceiving because the greens were actually the most delicious, though the skin was thicker and thus the texture not as nice. It wasn't like these were going to go to waste, but my plan was to take the ones I liked the least and make jam out of them. So the Greeks got jammed...after I ate a few more, just to make sure I was right.


Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh figs (you really have to buy a lot so you don't feel bad about cooking them. Just think of the fig jam you'll get to eat in the middle of winter when there are no fresh ones to be found. It's not about denying yourself now, it's about treating yourself later) 
1 1/3 cup cane sugar
zest and juice of 1 small lemon

Remove the tips of the figs if there are any. Some of the Greek ones didn't have any, so that was easy.
In a large saucepan combine the figs with the sugar, lemon juice and zest. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often. This takes awhile.

Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Then remove the lid and continue simmering, stirring often, until the mixture thickens. The original recipe said nothing about chopping the figs, so they'd been cooking whole this entire time, but that's very un-jam-like. So after an hour and fifteen minutes I crushed them with a slotted spoon. It made the jam thicken up faster, but you really need to stir often so it doesn't burn to the pot. 

You want it to get to the gel stage, which is thicker than you think. To test to make sure it's done put a small plate or saucer in the freezer for a few minutes, then take it out and put a little drop of the hot fig mixture on it. Then put it back in the freezer for 1 minute. Take it out and press the top of the jam down lightly with a finger. If it wrinkles a little then it's done.

While figs are cooking, you need to prepare the jars and lids. Sterilize: Wash jars, lids, and tightening rings with hot soapy water. Put a big pot of water on to boil (a canning pot - it has to be big enough to fit about eight 125mL cans or four 250mL jars so that the jars are covered on top by 2 inches of water). Boil the rings and cans (not the lids) for about 20 minutes. Then just leave the jars in the hot water (you can turn off the heat but leave the lid of the pot on) until you're ready to fill the jars. 

Put some more water in a small saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Then reduce the heat to low and add the jar lids. You never want to boil the lids because they seal with wax and so you don't want to melt it all in the water. Always use new lids, but you can use old (clean) jars and rings. Leave the lids in the slightly simmering water until you're ready to use them. the recipe didn't say how long to simmer, but I figured 10 minutes was more than plenty. They're new so you don't need to sterilize them in the same way as the jars and rings I guess?

Have some cloth towels ready (or something onto which you can set the hot jars down) and remove the jars and rings from the hot water. My slotted spoon/tongs methods works well. None of this fancy jar lifter business. French women probably didn't have such contraptions when they started making jam. You kind of need to do this relatively quickly, but if you're slow, it's okay as long as you don't put the cooled jars back into boiling water directly. Since the heat is turned off on the large pot you should be fine.

Fill the jars to the bottom lip (1/2 inch headspace). Wipe the rims of the jars and the threads with wet paper towel. Place the warmed lids on the jars using tongs (don't touch the rims now) and then you can use your hands (but still preferably tongs) to put on the rings. Then you'll have to use your hands to tighten the rings, but that's fine since the rims are covered. 

You kind of need to create some sort of rack to put at the bottom of the large canning pot of almost boiling water that you used to sterilize the jars since the filled jars shouldn't touch the bottom of the pot. I used a vegetable steamer since my cake rack was too big. Cake racks should be circular, I've decided. One day I will design a circular cake rack that is multipurpose. Then my life will be complete. I can make jam and cake using the same rack. What else could a girl want? Well, not diabetes, I suppose. 

Place the filled jars back in the water on top of your make-shift or purchased rack and bring the water back to a boil (if it stayed at a boil from before you save time, you need to fill the jars really fast so that they don't have time to cool off before they go back in the water. Boil the jars for 10 minutes. Start the timer only when the water comes back to a boil.

After 10 minutes take out the jar and set them upside down. I don't know if this helps but I've seen it in some recipes and I figure it can't hurt. When the jars are cool, tighten the lids a little more, and you're done! Ooh! Labels! Just in case you get all the jams you make messed up...yeah...right...

This Is What I Apparently Can't Get Myself To Save My Life...

We're going to play a little game...

Do you know what these are?

Most people reading this have probably never seen them before. I bought them for the first time in Vancouver at a market and as they were rock hard and inedible, I let them ripen for a few days. They started getting darker brown, shriveling up, and oozing a little. Well, that looked gross, so I threw them out. I guessed it was too warm and they were going bad instead of ripening properly.

As it turns out, that's what they're supposed to do. See how some are darker than others? Their nectar seeps out as they become the more shriveled version of themselves that you may actually recognize.

Don't worry, it's not your fault, since they don't grow here. If you lived in Iran or Tunisia you might recognize them. I assume this is one of the main types of the myriad that are grown there. In fact, I've only ever seen fresh ones on sale here from Tunisia, and generally I prefer the syrupy sweetness of the Iranian ones. They're different varietals, after all. Still, the Tunisian ones are the ones you'll find in this state and can let ripen on your counter (or in the case of Montreal in Fall, you can wait...and wait...and wait...), eating one by one as they ripen. If you leave them until they're just starting to darken and burst the sweetness is mild and the inside is still a little starchy - a world of difference from the dried fruit they can become. Just like people who've never had a fresh fig think they all taste like the dried ones. Well, does a grape taste like a raisin?

What do you get if you solve this riddle?

Well, hopefully a little laugh. A chuckle maybe. It's not "ha-ha" funny, really...It's more like when I was at a farmers' market in the rain standing partially under a tent, saying "It's not bad in here," just as a huge downpour of accumulated water ran off the edge of the tent onto the side and back half of my body...See? Hilarious. My life is hilarious.

Raw Tomato Cream Sauce

 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Brazil nuts (soaked 8 hours or overnight, or soaked and dehydrated...or not? Peeled is best but I didn't care about a smooth texture, and there are healthy things in the skin, I think)

1/4 cup water

1 medjool date, pit removed (soaked or not. Again, didn't care about a smooth texture)

6-8 cherry tomatoes

pinch of salt

Optional: 1/4-1/2 an avocado, a little lemon juice (lime for a fake, mediocre, but satisfying Thai dish), parsley, basil, or other fresh herb for garnish (or blend it in), garlic or onion, balsamic vinegar (not raw, I don't think...)

Instructions: Blend. That's all. As fine or as chewy as you want. It won't be crunchy unless you cut down on the water and rehydrate the nuts (I'd actually toast them until they're aromatic...but I'm not raw)

This experiment in "raw" oxymoronic cooking was a huge success. I wanted a tomato sauce that could also work as a dip or maybe even a bruschetta topping. I had these beautiful, sweet cherry tomatoes and some soaked and dehydrated brazil nuts (there's a ton of conflicting info on this. Some places say soak 8 hours or overnight, and others say don't soak at all...), so I threw in one medjool date for sweetness, a quarter cup of water, maybe 6 cherry tomatoes, a pinch of salt and...I think that was everything. Sounds bland, but my plan was to re-adjust the seasonings after, maybe add some lemon, but I decided not to in the end since it didn't need any.

For a first attempt at throwing stuff in the blender and calling it a sauce I was pretty happy with it as it was. I don't like raw garlic or raw onion and the powdered stuff tastes either too weak or too metallic. Next time maybe I'll experiment with herbs - add (or garnish with) some chopped parsley.

It's the end of zucchini season. Really, it's already pretty much done, but I found a bunch of big ones at the Plateau Farmers' Market yesterday and these will be put through my handy metallic grating thing and turned into noodles. Raw tomato sauce are generally junk because they're more like chopped tomatoes than sauce, but the creaminess from the brazil nuts (could also have used cashews or pine nuts) makes it into a pesto-type sauce. It reminded me of the pad thai that was not pad thai, but wasn't bad, at Rawlicious in Toronto. Except mine cost pennies and I wasn't disappointed.

Oh, I should explain how to use this differently. For a bruschetta just dice the the ingredients instead of blending, or use a food processor to chop finely. Don't use the water.

You can dilute the sauce to your liking, but thicker is usually better so it doesn't turn soupy. It's easy to make it more liquidy, but hard to make it less so once you've added too much water. If you want it less creamy use fewer nuts. Or think about adding some balsamic vinegar.

Another Ridiculous Cake: Almond Angel Food Cake With Amaretto Cinnamon Figs and Honey Amaretto Cream

It was my friend's birthday and she made a joke that someone should make her a cake. I never joke about cake.

So I needed to find a recipe for a cake that was large, but traveled well. So layers were out, and icing would be tricky. I've always thought of angel food cake as nothing special, but Bonnie Stern proved me wrong. Add some toasted ground almonds and lemon zest as well as some amaretto and vanilla flavours, soak some figs in cinnamon syrup and add a tangy crème fraiche...and voila, the food of angels. Not something you buy in a grocery store. The texture is soft and light without being all air. It's practically without fat (it would be completely without fat except for the addition of the ground almonds and my use of a high-fat yogurt for the small drizzle of cream) and it's completely, amazingly delicious. Almost enough to make me want to convert to something. If it promised this cake as a reward (in writing) I'd consider it. Probably more likely that if someONE promised me this cake (again, in writing, or the form of a ring or band) I'd go along with him too.

Ingredients:
1 cup cake and pastry flour (I used Première Moisson, which is all-purpose but works very well for baked goods)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided (I used real, granulated sugar here to get the right texture. I was worried cane sugar would be too coarse)
1/4 cup almonds, toasted and ground (without skin. You can use sliced or whole and just grind them after you toast them in a small skillet or saucepan over medium heat until they start to turn golden brown and aromatic)
1 1/2 cups egg whites (the recipe says "about 12" so I just used 12. Not a great idea sometimes, but it worked. I hate fussing with egg whites since they don't like to be fussed with once separated from their yellow brothers)
1 tsp cream of tartar (a whole teaspoon! I've never in my life used a whole teaspoon at once!)
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp lemon peel (I assume this is the same as zest?)

Amaretto Cinnamon Figs
3 cups water
2/3 cup honey or sugar (cane sugar is fine here since it melts. Honey is better)
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup amaretto (or orange liqueur or orange juice concentrate, but why would you use those unless you don't drink alcohol and don't want to get stuck with finding something to do with the rest of the bottle? I think you can get a little taster bottle of Disaronno at the liquor store. The alcohol gets cooked off anyway)
1 1/2 cups dried figs, stems removed - just twist them off (you could also use dried, sulphur-free apricots - the darker ones - and the cooking time will be less in that case)
1 tbsp lemon juice (or to taste)

Amaretto Cream:
1/2 cup thick, unflavoured yogurt, strained through a fine-mesh sieve lined with a cheese cloth or paper towels...or just a thick yogurt. Low-fat if you want, but the higher fat ones are generally creamier (pinehedge!). I personally hate the zero fat Greek-style yogurt from Liberté but you could use that if you so chose to keep the fat down. Come on, though, it's an angel food cake. Reducing the fat even more is like overkill, and killing is hardly angelic. MORE killing is even less so)
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp amaretto (or orange liqueur or orange juice concentrate. I have a feeling you could also just use a tiny bit of almond extract)

So this takes an age, but it's SO worth it. It's elaborate and a little difficult, but the end result is heavenly, so to speak. You can do it.

Directions:
 1. Step one is to make a pan. Yes, make a pan. If you don't own an angel food cake pan or a 10 inch (4L tube pan) that is. I used an aluminum 8 inch cake pan and some aluminum foil.

The aluminum part is important because it's a whole lot easier to remove the cake from the pan if you can tear the pan apart. It's kind of like a quasi-removable bottom. I toyed with the idea of doing two 8 inch cakes and then putting a frosting between the layers, but that doesn't travel well. If you wanted to do this, cut the baking time down to 18-25 minutes, or there about. Check it and be brave.

2. Toast the almonds and grind them in a blender or food processor or coffee grinder. Or just chop very finely. Add it to the flour and 3/4 of a cup of the sugar in a medium bowl and sift together. The almonds won't sift incredibly well, but don't worry. 

3. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Put on some music while you do this to keep yourself entertained...Put the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt in a large heatproof bowl (not aluminum) and don't get any water or yolk in the bowl. That will stop the whites from rising as much. To save the yolks from the garbage, add 4 1/2 teaspoons of sugar to them in a freezer-safe container, shake the container to mix, and put it in the freezer. Now you have lots of yolks for your next dessert. You can also do this with a certain quantity of salt if you want the yolks for savoury dishes such as mayonnaise. They'll also keep in the fridge for 2 days but 12 yolks in two days? There goes your heart. You can also freeze the egg yolk mixture in ice cube trays and then transfer to a freezer bag to have them in small quantities instead of struggling with a block of egg yolks the next time you want 2 yolks for a custard.

4. Set up a double boiler and bring a saucepan of water to a simmer. Place the bowl of egg whites on top and stir until they're warm (3-5 minutes). No need to stir for the entire time, just don't let them cook on you. So don't forget about them. Apparently if the egg whites are warm (at least room temperature) they'll triple in size. Cold whites won't do such a good job of expanding. Please, please, please, don't forget about them and let them cook. You just separated 12 eggs. You don't want to do that again. In fact, by now, you probably want to invest in an egg separator or use horrible liquid egg white products.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

6. When the whites are warm start beating them on low speed until they're opaque (if you beat on high they get too much air too fast and they're more unstable). Turn the mixer to medium and slowly beat in the 3/4 cups of sugar. Beat until the elusive soft peaks stage. Then beat in the almond extract and vanilla extract. Now get the bowl off the heat! You've come this far. No messing it up now!

7. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the egg whites as you fold it in. You can do this in 3 stages (add 1/3rd flour, fold; add 1/2 remaining flour, fold; add remaining flour, fold) but I like the pouring it in with one hand as you fold with the other because it keeps the flour separate. You can use a dry measuring cup to pour the flour if the bowl is heavy.

 8. Fold in the lemon peel (zest). Now you've got to work fast since the egg whites aren't getting any fluffier.

9. Gently spoon (I poured...gently) batter into the pan you created (or had) and lightly smooth the top before sticking it in the oven for 40-45 minutes. The recipe says check it with a cake tester to make sure it's done...does this mean a toothpick? I've never made an angel food cake before so maybe a cake tester is a fancy gizmo that I don't own. The mythical "cake tester" should come out clean and dry. Sure sounds like a toothpick to me. I don't know...so I went with the other indication: when the cake springs back when gently touched.

10. Now a little bit of a scary part. Turn the cake upside down on a rack and let it cool for an hour. I had to cut down the sides of the aluminum foil. I was not about the have the centre of my cake fall out onto a rack. So I put a towel under the bottom of my cooling rack and placed the rack directly on top of the cake. Then a deep breath...and flip! Phew! Leave it in the pan for now unless you know it's going to come off easily and you don't need to travel with the cake. I just wrapped it up in its own aluminum foil and traveled with it as it was after cooling.

11. Now you have a plain white fluffy cake, but what are you going to put on that cake? Bring the water, honey and cinnamon to a boil in a large saucepan (large is better than medium since there will be more surface area and the figs will spread out more evenly). When it comes to a boil add the amaretto, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes.

Then add the figs and cook about another 30-35 minutes, stirring every few minutes to saturate the figs. When they're soft and tender add the lemon juice to taste (I liked more than a tbsp) and cook for one more minute. You're not going to serve the cinnamon sticks but leave them in there for now to let them keep infusing the syrup. If the syrup is too thick add more hot water.

12. For the drizzle, combine the strained or unstrained yogurt with the honey and amaretto.

13. The assembly: Peel the aluminum foil and aluminum pan off your cake or somehow remove it from the pan. A removable bottom is a good thing, but so are scissors. Turn the cake upright on a plate or serving platter. See how it's already sinking in the middle? Be careful with weighing it down and saturating it with liquid.

14. Place the figs in a pattern you like (I liked it kind of like a flower, but I'm not that artsy I think, and it was all I could come up with), and let some of the syrup drizzle down the sides. If you get too much of it in the middle the cake will collapse, so be careful not to weigh it down with the syrup or the figs.

15. Then spoon the amaretto cream over top. You can use a squeeze bottle but who has one of those? Just don't pour it or, again, the cake may collapse, and that would be a disaster. You made it to the end! Take a picture. Then dig in to an angelic dessert.

Herbes Salées and Roasted Potatoes

Salted herbs: take some herbs and add salt. Or buy a small container of minced herbs preserved in salt. I found a nice bottle at an organic place I like and decided to give it a test drive. Seems to wasteful, I know, but there had to be something special about it. See, there are vegetables in this herb mixture too, so I figured it would be a higher vegetable-to-salt ratio than if I just added salt by itself. So maybe the sodium content is actually lower than an equivalent amount of salt because you're diluting it with vegetables. Maybe not. Basically it's overpriced salt, but you pay for the convenience of not chopping and mincing all these vegetables yourself. Ah, modern day consumers.

I had some organic new potatoes that tasted divine, so I chopped them a little, threw them in a roasting pan with a teaspoon or 2 of olive oil and maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of herbes salées. That stuff is pungent. Or just sprinkle with salt, oil, and your dried herb of choice. You can also add other vegetables but good luck mincing them like those in my container of French salted things. Toss to coat and place in a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven, use a lifter (you may need to scrape) to turn them over, and stick them back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. They should be soft. Test one and if it's soft enough for you it's done. If you chop them all the same size, they should all be done. If not, test a bigger one because if a bigger one is done, then the small ones definitely will be too.

You can roast at a lower heat for longer if you have the time, or higher heat (and watch them carefully so they don't burn) for shorter. It also depends on the size of your potatoes. The smaller they are the faster they'll roast.

Use good quality potatoes and you'll be very, very happy. Yes, potatoes taste like something, and small new potatoes taste sweet and smooth. A tiny bit of lemon juice is good to add at the end if you like a more acidic potato. Mediterranean-style. I didn't feel up to it. Felt more French. The French would cry.