Juicy Lemon Pie

How many of you like Lemon Pie? I do, and when well done, it´s one of my favorite desserts. Why? Well, because it´s juicy, with real lemon flavor, but at the same time it´s sweet, with a heavy, thick layer of the best merengue ever.

This post goes for Paula, a friend of mine who loves this recipe. Pau, I hope will send me pictures of your Lemon Pie for me to share with the Cook n Shout followers.

This is a recipe Mom shared with me and that I´ll share for you to try it. It´s the best lemon pie I tried so far.

INGREDIENTS:


For the dough:

A- Patience
B- 100 grams of soft butter
C-1 egg yolk
D- 3 tablespoons of sugar
E- 1 tablespoons of alcohol vinegar
F- 2 tablespoons of water
G- 1 cup of all purpose flour
H- Grated lemon peel

For the filling:

A- Patience
B- 1 cup of sugar
C- 1/4 cup of corn starch (or Maizena)
D- 1 cup of cold water
E- 1/3 cup of lemon juice
F- 4 egg yolks
G- 70 grams of butter
H- Grated peel of one and a half lemon.

For the merengue:

A- Patience
B-  1 cup of sugar
C- 4 egg whites
D- Water


PROCEDURE FOR THE DOUGH:


I owe you the pictures for this procedure, because I used a ready-to use- cookie crumbs dough.


FIRST STEP: Soften the butter either in the microwave or leaving it at room temperature for a while.

SECOND STEP:  Stir the egg yolk with the sugar.

THIRD STEP: Add the vinegar, the water and the lemon peel. Stir until well integrated.

FOURTH STEP: As we stir, we add the flour. We must get as a result an homogeneous dough. 

FIFTH STEP: We place the dough to cover the base of the cake mold. If when ready we plan to serve it on a different plate, then cover a little bit of the cake mold walls in order to contain the filling.

SIXTH STEP: Bake the dough at 180 degrees Celsius until we get a dry and slightly golden dough.

PROCEDURE FOR THE FILLING

FIRST STEP: Stir the yolks a little bit to avoid having granules in the filling. 

SECOND STEP: Place all the ingredients inside a casserole except for the butter.

THIRD STEP: Take the casserole to the stove and stir while cooking. You must cook until when you move the spatula, the mixture opens like the Red Sea and closes after it. I couldn´t take a good picture of it, as the liquid moves too fast for me to take a picture with dim light.

FOURTH STEP: When the filling gets the point described above, add the butter and mix until well integrated.

FIFTH STEP: Let the filling cool just a little bit and pour it into the already baked and cold dough. Make sure it is evenly distributed.

PROCEDURE FOR THE MERENGUE 

FIRST STEP: Separate the egg yolks from the whites and pour the whites in a dry bowl. Add a little bit of salt and whisk the whites until hard peaks form (we must be able to turn the upside down without the whites falling. 

SECOND STEP: While we whisk, put the sugar inside a casserole and cover it with water. The surface of the water must be 5mm away from the sugar.

THIRD STEP: Put the casserole on the fire and wait until it boils. Once it does, wet a fork witht he syrup and let a drop fall into a glass of water. If the syrup drop looks hard, we can go to step four, otherwise, keep on boiling the syrup.

FOURTH STEP: We pour VERY gently the hot syrup into the whites. Don´t stop whisking the whites, specially when pouring the syrup. The bowl will rise temperature. Once you poured all the content of the casserole, keep on whisking until the bowl is at room temperature again. This procedure will sweet and cook the whites.

FIFTH STEP: Put the merengue on top of the filling and distribute evenly.  

SIXTH STEP: With the help of a spoon or a spatula, hit the merengue in order to form peaks. You can design this layer as you like, really.

SEVENTH STEP: You can brown the merengue by placing it in in a hot oven for 20 or 30 seconds. You must put it under the flames. 

EIGHTH STEP: Put the cake in the fridge until it´s cold enough to serve it. Enjoy.

I hope you enjoy the cake as much as I do. Don´t forget to send your pictures to cookandshoutenglish@gmail.com so I can share them in a post.

Scons For Tea

Last month I went back to my homecountry to do some paperwork. As I was leaving New York for a month my Argentinean friends decided to go out for a picnic. One of the things I baked for this picnic was sweet scons. I made them with the recipe I learned from my younger sister, Inés, to whom I dedicate this post. 

I like scons to be rustic, "homemade looking", so follow the next steps and invite your friends for tea!

INGREDIENTS:

    A-    PATIENCE

       B- 500 grs all purpose flour

   C-   4 teaspoons of baking powder

   D-   200 grs of sliced butter at room temperature

   E-   2 eggs

   F-    8 full spoons of sugar

   G-   Grated lemon peel from one entire lemon

   H-   1/2 cup of milk 

    I-    Salt, just a little bit.

   J-    1 egg to brighten the scons´ surface

INSTRUCTIONS:

FIRST STEP: Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Butter and flour a baking metal tray. 

SECOND STEP: Sift the flour, salt and the baking powder into a bowl.

THIRD STEP: Make a crown or hole in the center of the flour and add the soft butter, the eggs, sugar, grated lemon peel and the milk. 

FOURTH STEP: Knead the ingredients with your hands, but be careful as the temperature of our hands must not melt the butter any further.

FIFTH STEP: Stretch the dough so that it has a height of about 3 centimeters. We can hel ourselves with a rolling pin, but I did it with my hands, so that the texture at the surface was irregular, more homemade-like.

SIXTH STEP: With a cookie cutter mold, cut the scons and place them on the floured metal tray. With a cooking brush or your fingers, brush the scons with egg yolk before baking. For extra sweetess, you can spray them with sugar too. 

SEVENTH STEP: Bake for about 20 minutes. If after the first 10 minutes you notice that the scons are brown at the bottom, put aluminum paper underneath.

You can serve them cold or warm, plain or with jam. If you know milk jam, in Spanish dulce de leche, you will drool! Enjoy with a cup of Lady Grey.

Greek Yogurt

Ok, so this time you will need a lot, and believe me when I say this, A LOT of patience. It´s super easy, but if you are an inpatient person, maybe you will want to buy the yogurt at a store, as it takes about 20 hours (depending on the texture you want to achieve). 

With this recipe we can make the drinkable yogurt, the regular one (not too liquid not too firm) or the greek yogurt one, dense but creamy. 

The ingredients we are going to need are only two, plus the most important one: the patience. 

INGREDIENTS:

A- Patience

B- 1lt of whole milk

C- 100grs of natural greek yogurt (it can be sweetened or not, I like the first)

INSTRUCTIONS:

FIRT STEP: Grab a clean casserole and pour the whole milk inside. Heat it on the stove until you can see little bubbles on the side, but don´t let it boil.  

SECOND STEP: Let it cool a little bit in order to remove the thin layer on top. 

THIRD STEP: Now, the finger test. We must check if the temperature is adequate in order to add the yogurt. We must  be able to touch the inner base of the casserole (yes, immersing your finger in the milk) and count, very slowly, to five. if you can stand it, then we proceed to the next step. 

FOURTH STEP: Pour in the yogurt and stir. In order to avoid lumps, stir the yogurt before pouring it into the casserole, the stir the milk and the yogurt in the casserole.

FIFTH STEP: Cover the casserole with a dish towel (I always put a wooden tray on top of the dish towel too).  Put the casserole somewhere warm. You can  turn on the oven while you heat the milk and turn it off to place the casserole inside the oven. OR you can leave it on the stove (turned off) and bake some cookies in the meantime, you can try these: http://cookandshoutenglish.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-favorite-this-winter-double.html . 

 SIXTH STEP: Leave the covered casserole rest for at least 10 hours and then you can start enjoying your natural yogurt. 

BUT, if you want to achieve the Greek Yogurt consistency, then stop eating and follow the next steps:

SEVENTH STEP: Grab a bowl and cover it with a cheese towel or with a clean dish towel and pour the natural yogurt from the casserole into the bowl. Check picture below.

EIGHTH STEP: Tie the cloth as if it were a bag. I tie opposite ends first so I can easily tie it to the fridge rack afterwards. Place the bowl below the hanging yogurt to collect the whey. 

NINTH STEP: Leave it to drain for 8 hours. If you want the yogurt to be thicker, then you can leave it rest up to 10 hours. If you leave it for longer, then you will get yogurt cheese. 

TENTH STEP: Put the yogurt in a tupper, jar, etc, and refrigerate. The Greek yogurt is ready to enjoy!

Share the pictures of your Greek Yogurt with other readers by sending the pictures to cooknshoutenglish@gmail.com

My Favorite This Winter: Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

New York´s weather has been a little bit harsh on me lately...it´s freezing outside and this is just the beginning...we are not even in December. Good thing I´m going South this January, I honestly feel like a lizard here, seeking for (any) ray of sunlight, standing near the stove... Oh, how I miss the warmth of summer! But then I think about all the good winter sweet hyper-caloric recipes and then, maybe, this cold weather is not that bad after all.

And when it comes to winter, the first think that comes to my mind is chocolate. So today I share with you this double chocolate chip cookies so you can invite your friends over or maybe, serve them as dessert with ice cream (yummy, an ice cream sandwich). You can add walnuts or white chocolate...now, stop imagining the cookies and bake them!!!!


INGREDIENTS

A- Once more, patience
B- 160 grs of butter (it must be soft, almost at room temperature)
C- 1/2 cup of white sugar
D- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
E- 2 eggs
F- 1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
G- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
H- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
I- 50 grs  unsweetened cocoa powder
J- 1/2 cup of oat
K- Salt ( a little bit, like this)
L- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or you can use grated orange peel instead)
M- Chocolate chip cookies (or/and nuts)...you can never have enough!



INSTRUCTIONS

FIRST STEP:  beat the butter with both sugars until obtaining a very soft mixture. Add the vanilla extract (or orange peel).

SECOND STEP: Add the eggs, one by one, until they are thoroughly incorporated to the mixture.

THIRD STEP: Mix and sifter the dry ingredients (except the oat). Incorporate them to the mixture.

FOURTH STEP: This is the step where you want to change the whisker to the mixing utensil (don´t know the English word for it!). For this reason this recipe is dedicated to my Dad who is always reminding me that a whisker can never work with such a stiff dough. And you know what? He´s right!
Now, add the chocolate chips or nuts (or chips and nuts) and mix.

FIFTH STEP: Add the oat and keep on mixing. Check the pictures (above and below), this is the heavy dough you want to obtain (cookie dough lovers, you will want to try this one!).

SIXTH STEP: Cover the dough with plastic wrapping paper and let it rest for 30 minutes in the fridge. 15 minutes before removing the dough from the fridge, turn on the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

SEVENTH STEP: Flour the surface where you are going to work and the dough  so it won´t stick to the rolling pin.

EIGHTH STEP: Cut the cookies, you can cut them the shape you like. Put them on a tray covered with parchment paper and take them straight into the oven.

NINTH STEP: Cook for about 10-12 minutes. When you touch them right after removing them from the oven, the center will be tender. Place them on a cooling rack and enjoy!

Multi-veggie (And Meat) Winter Soup -Or ´Puchero´ As I Call It In Spanish

New York, November 24th, -2 degrees Celsius. May be a big hot mug of soup don´t sound crazy at all. This is a recipe my mother taught me and believe me it´s delicious! The only problem I have with this soup is that I crave for it even in summer. Thank God, A/C exists! BTW, this post is for you, Mom!

Now, for those with a medium size casserole...let´s go straight to the recipe. 

INGREDIENTS:

A-PATIENCE!

B- 1 loaf of soup friendly cow meat or chicken

C- 1 corn

D- 1 peeled potatoe

E- 1 loaf of butternut squash

F- 1 small peeled onion cut in half

G- 2 burnches of celery

H- Water - until it gets 1,5cm away from the casserole edge.

I- Salt, as desired

J- Angel noodles

PREPARATION:

FIRST STEP: Put all the ingredients (keep the patience, please) in the casserole and cover with water until it gets 1.5cm away from the casserole edge. IMPORTANT: The angel noodles are used after the soup is made, do not pour them into the casserole at this stage.

SECOND STEP: Add salt.

THIRD STEP: Put the casserole over the stove and let the water boil . Once it reaches its boiling point, cover the casserole with the lid and cook for 3 hours more.

FOURTH STEP: Your soup is ready to be enjoyed, but if you want to add noodles to it, just pour some of the soup into another small casserole and  wait for it to boil. Once it does, add the amount of angel noodles desired into this new casserole and wait for the noodles to be cooked. Enjoy! You may add more salt, probably you didn´t add enough, that´s why I prefer to add salt once the soup is on my bowl.

Easy to do, delicious and warm, this puchero makes my winters :)

The Epic Carrot Cake

Hi, everybody, this is my first post in English. There were many friends encouraging me to write recipes in this language so here I am, in the English version of my Cook ´n´ Shout blog. Sorry for my English as it is not my mother language.

I usually dedicate the recipes in my Spanish blog, because cooking usually reminds me of people: husband, mom, dad, friends, siblings, grandmothers. And this recipe is dedicated to Cora, my older sister, because she´s the one who gave my husband and me the Kitchen Aid (the one I used to make this carrot cake) as a wedding gift.

Another thing you will notice while surfing my blog is that my first ingredient is, and always will be, patience. I learned after many (and believe me when I say ´many´) mistakes that when you cook (and paint) you want to be patience. If you are not in a rush and you are able to think what you are doing and feel the chemistry going on with the ingredients, then you will have a wonderful result.

Now, to the recipe!

INGREDIENTS

A- PATIENCE

B- 2 eggs

C- 5/8 cups of vegetable oil (or to make things easier, half a cup plus an eighth of a cup. You said you wanted it    to be easier? Half a cup and a little extra!) 

D- 1 cup of sugar

E- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

F - 1 cup of all purpose flour

G- 1 teaspoon of baking soda 

H- 1 teaspoon of baking powder

I- 1/4 teaspoon of salt

J- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

K- 1 teaspoon of ginger

L- 1 1/2 cups of thin grated carrots (believe me, the cake will NOT taste of carrots!) 

M- 1/2 cup of walnuts

Did you notice that when people think of a sophisticated tasting dessert, they think it must be very hard to make?  Well, guess what? This one isn´t! In fact it is really easy to make and really straight forward. And remember, don´t be afraid of trying a carrot cake because it has the word ´carrot´ in it: Chill, it does not taste  as the salad you had for lunch!

FIRST STEP: grate the carrots and reserve. You can grate them thin or thick. I personally prefer it thin because they release more juice . Thick grated carrots make the cake a little bit dry, plus, people see the carrots and freak out. Why people? Why are you afraid of carrots? Bugs Bunny likes them, they can´t be bad, right?

SECOND STEP: chop the walnuts. You don´t want to chop them too small nor too big. And here a little trick for when you put rasins, blueberries, nuts, chocolate chips into a cake mix: put a little bit of flour to the cup of whatever it is you are going to add so that, in this case the walnuts, don´t sink and end up at the bottom of the mixture when they are in the oven (check pictures).

THIRD STEP: turn on the oven to 157-180 degrees Celsius and  oil the cake mold. Do not flour it. 

FOURTH STEP: beat the eggs with the vegetable oil, the sugar, and the vanilla extract. 

FIFTH STEP: incorporate the dry ingredients to the mix while beating. 

SIXTH STEP: Add the grated carrots and, last but not least, the chopped and floured walnuts.

SEVENTH STEP: pour the mixture into the cake mold and bake it for less than an hour. You will know it is ready because your house will smell incredibly good. When we grab the cake mold we will see that the mixture is raw in the middle because it will move a little bit. But we won´t let the dough fool us! We must sink a knife in the cake and when we pull it out it must come off clean, otherwise, into the oven for a little longer.

Let´s not forget about the topping. Of course you can eat it without any topping, as the cake is very moist anyways. But you may want to prepare a delicious toppings to serve to your family and friends.

Important: the following are ´as you wish´ quantities, there´s no exact amount of ingredients you must use, as long as you like it, its fine!

Sour cream

Grated lemon peel

Powdered sugar

Vanilla extract

Mix the ingredients altogether and voilà...the topping for your epic carrot cake. Enjoy!