ALMOND CROISSANT RECIPE || the best possible way to end, or start a year

photo by Yunhee Kim

On the morning we brought Greta home from the hospital, November 4, 2010, we went straight to our neighborhood bakery, Astor Bake Shop. I know, lots of mothers don't leave the house with their newborns until they are solidly three months old, but I was not only very hungry, but way too excited to sit at home (don't worry, she's as healthy as an ox).  

I remember everything about that day: how teeny Greta was, all 7 pounds of her, in her fleecy white coat, curled into my chest; the way everyone at the bakery pointed and stared (look, a brand newborn); the way the air felt, cool and sweet and full of possibility; and, every enormously delicious morsel of my almond croissant – the first real food I had eaten for nearly 48 hours. 

If you've never had the pleasure of enjoying an almond croissant, here's what you should know: they’re like manna from heaven. Though almond croissants are generally a pastry chef's trick to make day-old-croissants new again (split the croissant, spread it with almond crème and bake until golden brown and intoxicatingly fragrant), they're always my number one pick in a pastry counter. I can think of no greater food with which to end, or start, a brand new year.

A good or even amazing almond croissant is easy to come by in Paris or New York, but elsewhere, say, in the tiny upstate New York town where we're spending our New Years, you have to make your own. Believe me, it is well worth the tiny effort.

Here’s my recipe, bar none one of my favorites from Feast (p.s. if you don't have croissants, this works on day-old bread, too).

ALMOND CROISSANTS | SERVES 6

1 recipe almond cream (see below)

6 day-old croissants, halved crosswise

Skin-on sliced almonds, for sprinkling

Powdered sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide all but 1/3 cup/75 ml of the almond cream over the bottom halves of the croissants. Cover with the top halves, using your hand to flatten the croissants just slightly. Spread more almond cream over the top of the croissants with an offset spatula, leaving some of the edges bare. Sprinkle with almonds. 

Bake on the prepared baking sheet until the cream is cooked through and the top is golden brown, about 20 minutes, covering the top with foil if needed to prevent overbrowning. Dust generously with powdered sugar. Serve warm or at room temperature.

ALMOND CREAM | aka frangipane 

Almond cream, or frangipane, is a sweetened ground-almond or almond flour base for desserts, pies, tarts, and more.

1/2 cup unsalted room-temperature butter

1/2 cup unbleached sugar 

1 cup ground almonds or almond flour

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons oat flour or all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt 

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add ground almonds or almond flour and beat together. Add in the egg and egg yolk, one at a time, and then the vanilla extract. Stir in the flour and sea salt, scraping the bottom for any dry or unmixed bits, until the mixture is evenly fluffy and smooth. 

Store in a container with an airtight lid in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. (Makes enough for 6 croissants or 6 almond toasts)

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM Feast: Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite 

Feast || Roasted Kale, Broccolini and Chickpea Salad with Ricotta

photo by karen mordechai

If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him. the people who give you their food given you their heart. | Cesar Chavez. 

Whenever people learn that I'm a professionally-trained cook, the first thing they ask, almost always, is "what's your specialty?" Until fairly recently, I might have said something like healthful, indulgent, French-Italian-inspired farm-to-table fare. But probably my biggest specialty of all is fast. And, easy. Because life is always full to the brim, there's very little time for fussy technique in my kitchen, even, or perhaps especially when I'm entertaining, when fussy cooking would be too big a distraction from the wonderful people around me. 

Enter this salad: crispy broiled chickpeas, kale and broccolini (the skinny, fast-cooking cousin of broccoli) topped with luscious dollops of ricotta. It's both easy and inspiring, and a befitting  starting point to a meal celebrating my new book, at Sunday Suppers, the beautiful dinner (and photography!) studio of my friend Karen Mordechai. 

Because all the magic happens in the oven under the broiler, this is a salad you can make while talking, pouring wine, setting the table or, say, making friends with the 20 wonderful, gracious guests we had Sunday night. I hope to see them all again. In the meantime, here's the salad recipe, for your next feast. 

ROASTED BROCCOLINI, KALE + CHICKPEA SALAD WITH RICOTTA | SERVES 4

1 bunch broccolini, or broccoli, cut into long florets

1 bunch Tuscan or Lacinato kale, stemmed (if large) and torn

1½ cups/240 g cooked chickpeas (see below) or canned, drained

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

¼ cup/60 ml extra-virgin olive oil, plus for drizzling

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
pinch red pepper flakes

1 lemon, cut into wedges

8 oz/250 g fresh ricotta cheese

Preheat the broiler to high. Toss the broccolini, kale, chickpeas, and garlic with the olive oil. Season lightly with sea salt, pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes and divide between two rimmed baking sheets. Broil each sheet, tossing halfway through cooking, until the kale is crispy and the broccoli just tender and charred but still bright green, about 5 minutes, rotating the trays top to bottom if two don’t fit side by side in your oven. Squeeze the juice from two lemon wedges all over the top and toss together.

Divide between two to four small plates and top each with a dollop of ricotta. Sprinkle the ricotta with black pepper and drizzle each plate with oil. Serve warm or at room temperature.

CRAZY GOOD CHICKPEAS

Start with one 1-lb/455-g bag dried chickpeas and soak them in water overnight in a medium soup pan or saucepan. The next day, bring them to a boil and skim off the white foam after 5 minutes of cooking. Drain, rinse, and return them to the pot. Cover with 4 cups/960 ml fresh water and throw in carrot, celery, onion, parsnip, thyme and bay leaf for extra flavor. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer, add ¾ tsp salt, and cook until completely tender, about 45 minutes. Drain, reserv­ing 1 cup/240 ml of the cooking liquid for prepa­rations like Hummus. You should have about 6 cups/985 g of cooked chickpeas. 

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM Feast: Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite 

p.s. the Chavez quote, above,  appears on a beautiful screen-printed banner in the Sunday Suppers studio, which you can buy for yourself, here.

of chestnuts and plenty

Happy New Year! The first day of the year is a good day for talking about a healthy start and new beginnings. It’s a day for fruit salads and resolutions. But we lived so much in every inch and corner of last year that it’s spilled over into this one. Resolutions will have to wait. Today, I’m still reflecting.

Last year was full—full of blessings. Of celebrations and new things. It was a year of grabbing each moment and living in it a little more richly—allowing space and time for doing or cooking or eating or learning something that grabbed my attention at a given time, a freer form of living I learned from my sweet husband. I spent more time luxuriating over details on the garden. I splurged a little on that fine stinky cheese or handmade chestnut raviolis at Eataly, despite the knowledge that I could make (the later) at home for half the cost.  I enjoyed the craft of crackly crust breads I dream of making myself, and not for a minute regretted that I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Last year, I read books, books like The Invisible Bridge and The Shoemaker's Wife, which let me travel far beyond our four walls, let my mind and soul soar to new places and times, like a tiny village of the Bergamo Alta in the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century.  It is there that I imagined this meal, and how it came to be in our table—a meal from the time of artisans, when handcrafted foods unassumingly filled our kitchens—a time of hand cut ravioli and Robiola that aged in the cellar of every family home. It left such an impression on my soul that when Gourmet asked me what my best meal of the year was, this one came immediately to mind. It’s now a part of their collection of the Best Things We Ate in 2012 on Gourmet Live, and one of dozens of memorable meals, moments, and riches I count among my own year's bests.

~

I always thought it odd that in our culture on New Years Eve, we party until the ball drops, and start the New Year pulling our pillows over our eyes. I’m much more inclined to want to sit around a table with good friends and a generous spread of food, as we did last night, giving thanks for the plenty in our lives—the friendships, our dear families, good health—and then, at home quietly in our beds, think about what we want to carry forward into 2013: meals like this one, the love of color and texture and intoxicating photography, the instinct to stop long enough and often enough to write down the amazing things our tiny girl is saying and learning, to savor the pink of her cheeks and lips when she first wakes up, to keep dreaming about making my own crackly crust breads, and when I can not, keep treating myself to those made by others.

More than anything else, I want to carry forward gratitude—gratitude to God for all the tremendous opportunities we’ve been given; Gratitude to our friends, our family, our communities for making life rich, and for believing in our little family; Gratitude to all of you who come here to read and be fed. I hope you’ll keep coming, and most importantly, I hope your new year is full of plenty. 

Photos and Recipes © Sarah Copeland 2013

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