A Portuguese dessert in search of a better name

Why would you name your dessert "Rancid Cake"? This is precisely what we saw on the dessert list at a popular neighborhood restaurant in Lisbon. After a huge meal of garlic bread soup and salt cod baked with potatoes, we weren't really interested in dessert but took a look at the menu anyway, and this cake, because of its unusual name, caught our eye. Dave made up his mind immediately that he had to have it. The waiter explained that that the name had come about because of the use of "rancid butter" but followed with the promise that it was a very good cake. We decided to focus on the waiter's assessment of its deliciousness rather than on the potential rancidity of one of the ingredients, despite the opposing nature of these two details. And it was very good. I couldn't detect any hint of rancidness in it at all.

Anyway, after we came home, I saw an entry for "Putrid Cake" or "Bolo Podre" in another one of my Portuguese cookbooks:





The recipe does not use butter, but olive oil. The author theorizes that perhaps in the old days, the olive oil might have gotten rank or rancid, resulting in the unfortunate name, but prefers the alternative meaning of "podre" ("depraved" or "corrupt") to describe the influence of a rich and decadent cake.

Naturally, I had to make it to follow one of our Portuguese dinners. The list of ingredients is very interesting: finely ground anise seeds, 5 eggs in a total of 2 cups flour, olive oil, honey, and almost two cups of booze from a combination of tawny port, white wine and brandy. The top is supposed to crack as seen here:



We paired it with a semi-sweet madeira that we had brought home from Funchal, Madeira. This wasn't even the best madeira from our total Portuguese vacation haul:



but even so it was way better than the average bottle you can buy at your local wine store back at home. I can't wait to get into the other, better stuff!

So, what was the rest of the dinner like that I made to go with the Putrid/Corrupt Cake? I started this post backwards with dessert, but the rest of dinner was no less good. We had the Portuguese meatballs that I've made before again, this time paired with green beans with garlic, fresh coriander leaves, olive oil and lemon from the same cookbook that gave me the cake recipe. This is one of the best ways to prepare green beans that I have come across!



The Douro wine, made with Port grapes, was from our local gourmet purveyor of all things Iberian, The Spanish Table in Berkeley. It was a winner!

Metaballs XIII - Turkish meatballs with eggplant puree

This is a most unusual, and delicious!, recipe from this cookbook



It's sort of like meatballs cooked in baba ghanoush!

The meatballs are made from a mixture of ground beef, eggs, breadcrumbs, allspice, cumin and black pepper, and are first browned in oil and then cooked in an eggplant sauce, prepared as follows. The eggplants are first roasted/grilled over the stove top gas burner until the skin blisters and blackens and the flesh is soft. The skin is removed and the flesh, which has become pleasingly smokey, is mashed up. Sliced onions from a large onion are sauteed until golden and soft, and then the mashed eggplant and a bit of tomato paste is added. The browned meatballs are simmered in this mixture.



I made some tabbouleh (from the same cookbook) to go along with it and served everything with some pita bread. This was a good recipe! - I might have to make it again soon!

Meatballs XII - Indian meatballs/koftas

These meatballs are different from your regular meatballs not just because the ground meat has a lot of spices mixed in, but mostly because they are also stuffed with an aromatic mixture of green chillies, garlic, ginger, scallions, lemon juice and salt and pepper. The stuffed meatballs are then browned with yet more spices (cinnamon, cardamom...) and then cooked in a tomato-based sauce with yet more spices. It was really quite delicious, served over rice boiled with a bit of butter and salt to soak up the sauce. Here is a picture of it



The recipe is from the oldest cookbook I own. I bought it in 1992 or so, when I moved out of grad school dorm into an actual apartment where I'd have to cook my own meals instead of eating in the dining halls. I still remember that I bought this cookbook because my good friend Melissa owned it and had invited Dave and I over for dinner at her apartment, where she cooked the "Chicken with tomato sauce and butter" recipe. It was so good it made an impression on me! - and I bought the cookbook as soon as I had a kitchen of my own.

Meatballs XI

Meatballs three days in a row!!! We had meatballs again last night. OK, maybe tonight I will make something else. I saw a most unusual meatball recipe using peaches and knew I had to make it. It was from this cookbook



The meat mixture was pretty standard, containing breadcrumbs, parsley, onions and garlic, but it was the sauce that absolutely transformed this dish! The browned meatballs were simmered in this sauce made from caramelized sugar, butter, browned pears, sherry vinegar, broth, cinnamon and toasted pine nuts. It was like a really, really amazing rendition of familiar sweet-and-sour flavors. I also made a standard Spanish side of spinach with pine nuts and raisins. The wine was an Albarino from Spain, which turned out to be a little too delicate to stand up to the robust flavors of the meatball sauce. Perhaps a heavier white, like a slightly oakey Viognier would have been a better match. I offered the remains of an apple gallete to Dave, but he said he didn't need dessert because the peaches in the sweet sauce was dessert-y enough!

Meatballs X

I finally cooked out of a cookbook I'd owned forever and never used.



Earlier, I had passed up on the meatball recipe in there before because the meatballs are poached, and I thought, boiled meatballs can't be any good! However, after meatballs IX, which were roasted in an oven, I became more open to new ways of cooking meatballs so I decided to give these ones a try. Besides, the meatballs are poached in broth, which can't be all that bad!

The beef mixture was flavored with parsley, cloves and nutmeg, and the meatballs were poached very slowly, the recipe instructing you to keep the broth simmering "at a tremble". Wow! They came out really light, almost like dumplings! They were served with horseradish sauce and some more of the cabbage from our previous meal the day before (meatballs IX - yes, we had meatballs two days in a row).

Meatballs IX

I acquired a new cookbook:



and when Dave asked, "Is it time for more meatballs?" I looked in my new cookbook and found a recipe for lamb meatballs. Unlike all the previous recipes where the meatballs are browned in oil in a pan on the stovetop, this recipe instructs you to cook the meatballs spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet in the oven. Mixed in with the ground lamb was sauteed chopped shallots, garlic & zucchini, as well as fresh chopped mint and (this is the ingredient that makes the dish) preserved lemons. I had made a big jar of lemons preserved in lemon juice and salt years ago, and it was one of the best thing I ever did. It keeps in the fridge forever and I use it in stews, salads, and recipes such as this one requiring unusual ingredients. Dave liked the meatballs, he said it had good meat flavor. I also made a garlic-yoghurt mix to go with the meatballs, and side dishes of brussel sprouts and sauteed cabbage. The wine was a Cline Small Berry Mouvedre that we had acquired on a recent trip to Sonoma county. It was delicious, but we decided to let the rest of the bottles age for a few more years to bring out the complexity in the wine.



Dessert was an apple galette, paired with a late harvest Sauvignon Blanc from Dry Creek Vineyard. I had a nice time sipping it while sight-reading Jerome Kern on the piano. I sight read much better with a glass of wine! It was a nice end to a long Memorial Day weekend.

Meatballs VIII

Here's a recipe that seemed unlikely, but turned out to be one of those things whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's from one of Marcella Hazan's cookbooks:



The recipe for "Pork balls with beans and tomatoes" instruct you to serve the dish with polenta, which seems a little strange, considering that there was already plenty of starch in the form of cranberry beans (I used navy beans instead) in the meatball stew. But, I do love polenta (perhaps because I love grits from having gone to school in the south) so I did as instructed. The other change I made was to add some beet greens I had been saving (the beetroots had been roasted and eaten a few days earlier) to the stew for the last 15 minutes of cooking. Wow! The combination of the meatball stew, the greens, and the polenta was hearty and satisfying. Dave said that the beet greens were the best part, because they had picked up all the flavors of the meatball stew.



The wine was made from Lagrein grapes from Jacuzzi in Sonoma. It was very purple and hearty, perfect for the meal.

Meatballs VII

After all the exotic meatballs I'd been making, I decided to go back to basics and consulted this cookbook, the most-used of my half-dozen or so Spanish cuisine cookbooks:



There are no fewer than nine meatball recipes in this book alone. I chose the one that appeared in the "Tapas" section. You can't get more basic than that!

Meatballs in Almond, Garlic and Parsley Sauce:



As you can see, Huxley Beagle thinks that the meatballs smell delicious! He didn't get to have any, though. A friend of mine who is a fan of my cooking once said that it must be torture for Huxley Beagle to have to live with all the cooking smells and not get to eat the food! He did get to lick the sauce off our plates and he did such a good job he must have thought it was delicious!

Meatballs VI

Maghrebi Veal Meatballs with Spinach and Chickpeas is from another excellent cookbook that I have lately been sadly neglecting:



The dish is more like a stew containing meatballs cooked with spinach and chickpeas. I used a mixture of beef and pork instead of veal for the meatballs, which were flavored with a complex Tunisian spice mix containing paprika, coriander seed, caraway seed, anise, cumin, cloves, turmeric, black pepper and cayenne.



It was very delicious and went particularly well with the Pinot Noir from Mendocino County that some nice friends had left at our house (Thanks, Beth and Tim!) A great hearty one-pot meal to make on a cold weeknight; all you need to complete the meal is some nice wine to drink with it!

Meatballs V

Looking for a more basic meatball recipe to try next, I made Moroccon Lamb Meatballs from the following cookbook



The meatballs were made from ground lamb and flavored with cumin and paprika. They were browned and then served with the following essential relishes, cucumber yoghurt salad and a salad of dressed mint leaves, all part of the same recipe. I also made a classical Spanish side dish of spinach sauteed with garlic, pine nuts and raisins.



The wine was an imported Spanish white from The Spanish Table, made from moscatel grapes grown in Malaga, from where one can spy the Moroccon shoreline directly across the Mediterranean Sea.

Meatballs IV (Bacalao Croquettes)

Here's a very different kind of meatball than the sort that usually comes to mind, but fish is a type of meat too, right?



These are salt cod croquettes, made from a recipe from the first Moro Cookbook.



Salt cod (bought from our neighborhood Italian deli, at a good price!) was soaked for 24 hours with several changes of water, then poached, shredded and mixed with boiled mashed potatoes and parsley and formed into quenelles that were then fried in olive oil. It was served with a green salad and home-made aioli and a Oregon Pinot Gris from Lazy River Vineyard.

Dave really liked them, said it reminded him of the fish cakes that Grandma Laura used to make when he was growing up.

Meatballs III

On Sunday, as I was pondering what to make for dinner, Dave pointed out that perhaps it was time for Meatballs III. I remembered a great recipe from this cookbook



The recipe is called "Polpette d'Artusi alla Villa Gaidello", and was adapted from a 19th century cookbook. The meat mixture is formed into patties, rather than meatballs. This recipe had by far the longest listing of ingredients for the meat mixture I have encountered: ground pancetta, ground chicken thigh, ground beef, chopped parsley, onions & garlic, currants, toasted pine nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. The meat patties were browned first and then finished in a sweet/sour sauce of glazed pearl onions, reduced stock and balsamic vinegar.



I made a side of brussel sprouts steamed and then sauteed in garlic and olive oil. The wine was a Cline mourvedre from the Sonoma-Carneros district whose bright berry notes went well with the currants in the meatballs and the sweet/sour balsamic vinegar sauce.

Dave says that of the 3 meatball recipes I've made lately, this one is the best. We'll have to see if I can top it...

Meatballs II

I loved the tartness imparted by the pomegranate juice in the sauce of Meatballs I so much that when I decided to make a Spanish meatball recipe I chose one that had lemons in it. I have many Spanish cookbooks and each cookbook carries several meatball recipes, but this is the first recipe I've ever seen that used lemons. The recipe, "Pilar Monteoliva's Meatballs in Lemon Sauce", is taken from Penelope Casas' latest cookbook, La Cocina de Mama.



The pork-and-beef meat mixture contains chopped cured ham, parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, milk, two whole eggs and fresh lemon juice. This is browned in olive oil and then cooked in a sauce of onions, chicken broth and white wine. To finish the sauce, a crushed mixture of parsley, garlic and saffron, together with more fresh lemon juice, is added at the end. Now the next step is interesting. Two egg yolks are first thinned with some broth and then added to the sauce to thicken it. The egg yolks and the saffron from the crushed mix contributed a yellowish hue to the sauce, which goes with the idea of lemons, I suppose!



The crushed mixture of parsley, garlic and saffron imparted a very typical Spanish meatball flavor to the dish. The lemon scent and very slight tartness made the meatballs very appetizing. Dave said they were so easy to eat, he ate almost the whole thing! I made some green beans with garlic, smoked paprika and olive oil as a side and we had a bottle of Limerick Lane Zinfandel from the Russian River Valley to go with it. The beautiful table runner was made by Dave's mom (check out her quilting projects here).

I think these Meatballs II are even more decadent than Meatballs I (where a friend pointed out, rightly, how it was funny that I tried to make MEATballs healthier by using olive oil instead of butter!). I didn't attempt any healthier substitutions in this recipe, but I did make a side of green vegetables to go with it, and the red wine will hopefully work its "French paradox" magic...

Meatballs I

So I had recently made something from a cookbook I own that I hadn't used for a while (ie, a few years!). It was a bulgar wheat pilaf with green and red peppers, chickpeas and tahini sauce that Dave had requested for a picnic we were going to with a middle eastern theme. While flipping through the pages after I had made the pilaf, I noticed a meatball recipe from Azerbaijin (a country in Eurasia bounded by the Caspian Sea, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Iran). The recipe caught my eye because of its unusual sauce made from pomegranate juice. I love meatballs, from spaghetti and meatballs to albondigas tapas, and I just had to try the recipe and I thought that, much as I was on a ravioli kick earlier, I could go on a meatball kick and make all the unusual as well as old favorite meatball recipes I could find and blog about it. Dave realized that he would be benefiting from this blogging idea and he was all for it.

The beef-and-lamb meat mixture was flavored with allspice, paprika, onions and mint. After browning on all sides (it was supposed to be browned in butter, but I substituted olive oil as a healthier alternative - although I shouldn't have mentioned that because once Dave reads that he's going to want me to make it again with butter) and then simmered in a sauce of pomegranate juice (I get mine from The Spanish Table outpost in Berkeley) and chicken broth and sprinkled at the end with chopped mint leaves. I made some steamed rice flavored with salt and butter to go with it, which was the perfect accompaniment to the tangy sauce. Here's a picture of the meatballs (taken before I remembered to sprinkle them with the chopped mint leaves), with the cookbook next to it



Stay tuned for more meatball entries!