Recipes by
Lidia Bastianich
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Apple Crisp Parfait
Serves 10 or more
A parfait is a great party dessert — elegant looking but essentially quite simple. This one is really fun to put together, and I have the kids help me: they love to crack and crumble up into hundreds of pieces the big brown sugar crisp I've baked, then layer them in the parfait glasses (and pop lots of crumbles into their mouths too, I've noticed).
Like the crisp, the poached apple cubes are delicious all by themselves. You want to use flavorful, tart-tasting apples that will keep their shape when cooked but soften up nicely and remain moist too. Good varieties are Greening, Granny Smith, Northern Spy and Golden Delicious. Some of the heirloom cooking apples that orchards are growing again would be fine too — we can never have too many varieties of apples to enjoy.
For Poaching the Apples
4 pounds firm, tart apples for baking (see headnote)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
Juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons), freshly squeezed and strained
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
For the Parfait
3 cups heavy cream, for whipping
2 to 3 cups Brown Sugar Crisp Crumbles (recipe follows)
Recommended Equipment
A large saucepan, 5- or 6-quart capacity, with a cover
Poaching the Apples
Cut the apples in thick wedges, peel, and cut away the cores and seeds. Slice the wedges into chunks and cubes, an inch thick or larger (don't cut them too small or they will overcook). As you work, put the apple chunks in a mixing bowl and toss with some of the lemon zest and juice, to prevent browning. When you're finished, you should have about 10 cups of apples mixed with all the zest and juice.
Pour the sugar over the apples, and toss gently to coat the pieces. Turn all the fruit into the saucepan, slosh the bowl with the 1/2 cup water to rinse out all the sugar, and pour that into the pan too.
Set the saucepan over medium-high heat and bring the water to a boil. Stir the apples gently (so they're all heating), cover the pan, and cook about 2 minutes. Remove the cover, and continue to boil, reducing the juices, stirring the apple chunks around a couple of times, but not mushing them up. After 5 or 6 minutes, when the apples have softened and turned translucent on the outside (they won't be cooked all the way through), remove the pan from the heat. If the chunks have started to all apart, turn them out of the saucepan into a bowl to stop cooking; otherwise, let the apples and the remaining liquid cool to room temperature (the chunks will reabsorb some of their juices as they sit).
The apples can be cooked a day ahead and refrigerated; let them warm up a bit before serving.
Brown Sugar Crisp Crumbles
Yield: 4 to 5 cups of crumbled-up crisp
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons cold water
Recommended Equipment
A food processor or hand-held pastry cutter
A rimmed baking sheet
Parchment paper
Preheat the oven to 400.
It is the quickest to mix the crisp in the food processor, fitted with the metal blade. Put the flour, sugars, cinnamon, and salt in the workbowl. Process briefly to blend the dry ingredients. Drop in the butter pieces and pulse a dozen or so times, until the butter has been uniformly cut into a sandy powder of small bits. Sprinkle on the water, and process for a couple of seconds only, just to moisten the dough; it should still be rather loose and granular.
To mix by hand, blend the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and cut the butter into the grainy powder with a pastry cutter. Toss the powder and water with a fork to moisten.
Line the baking sheet with the parchment paper. Sprinkle the loose grains of dough evenly — in one layer — in an oval shape about 8 by 12 inches, filling in any holes and keeping the layer thin; don't compress them.
Bake for about 10 minutes, then rotate back to front, for even heating. The crumbs will have melted together, spread out in a thin layer, and perhaps started to bubble. Bake for another 7 to 10 minutes or more, until the layer is deeply caramelized, golden brown all over (and probably very dark on the edges). It will resemble a giant brown sugar cookie.
Set the pan on a wire rack, and cool until the cookie is very crisp. Cut or break off any burnt edges. Crack the cookie into crispy flakes, an inch or smaller. This is a good size for munching; you can crumble them up a bit more when layering the parfait.
Assembling the Parfaits
Have the apples, crumbled-up crisp, and serving glasses ready.
Whip the cream until soft peaks form, by hand or in an electric mixer. (No sugar or flavoring is needed, since the apples and crisp are quite sweet.)
Spoon about 1/2 cup of apple chunks into each glass, making a thick layer that fills the bottom. Scatter crisp crumbles on top — anywhere from 2 to 5 tablespoons on each parfait. Plop 1/2 cup or so of whipped cream on top of the crisp crumbles.
Now repeat the layers — apples, crumbles, cream — in each glass. These can be smaller amounts, or as ample as the bottom layers, for an impressive and generous dessert.
*Recipe reprinted with permission from Lidia's Family Table cookbook (Knopf, 2004). Potato Gnocchi
Yield: About 72 gnocchi
1 1/2 pounds baking potatoes
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, beaten well
1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour
Recommended Equipment
A potato ricer or vegetable mill
Making and Shaping the Gnocchi
Boil the potatoes in water to cover until tender when poked with a fork. Don't let them overcook to the point that their skins split. Drain. As soon as the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and put them through the ricer or vegetable mill, using the medium disk and letting the shreds fall onto a large baking tray or board. Spread them out, sprinkle on the salt, and let them dry out and cool for at least 20 minutes.
Pour the beaten eggs over the potatoes, and then 1 cup of the flour. Gather the mass together and knead, adding a little more flour as necessary to make the dough hold together. But keep it light; the more you work the dough, the more flour you'll need, and you don't want to incorporate too much or the gnocchi will be heavy and dry. A good criterion: slice the mass in half and examine the texture. It should look like cookie dough peppered with small holes.
Cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll out each portion into a broomstick about 18 inches long, then cut crosswise into 2/3 inch pieces and toss them lightly in flour. You should have about 72 gnocchi.
Take one piece of gnocchi and place it, cut side down on the tines of a fork, then with your lightly floured thumb press into it, at the same time pushing it off the end of the fork and onto a floured board. The gnocchi should have an indentation where your thumb was and ridges from the fork tines on the other side. Repeat with all the remaining pieces and cover with a clean towel. At this point, they should be cooked immediately or quickly frozen.
Cooking the Gnocchi
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Drop the gnocchi, 5 or 6 at a time, into the boiling water — the larger the pot the less time they will take to return to the boil. Once they have, cook for 2 to 3 minutes until they plump up and float to the surface; when done, they will have a softer feel and will no longer thump against the side of the pan as you fish them out with a strainer or slotted spoon. Drop them gently from your strainer into the waiting sauce.
Freezing Gnocchi
Spread the gnocchi out, not touching, on a floured baking pan or whatever will fit in your freezer, and freeze them. When they are solid — in about 2 hours — gather them together, shake off excess flour, and store them in sealed plastic bags for future use. They will keep for up to 6 weeks.
To cook frozen gnocchi, do half a batch at a time and double the amount of cooking water. Because they are frozen, the cooking-water temperature drops, and if there are too many in the pot they will disintegrate before the water returns to the boil.
Pesto Asparagus or Green Bean Sauce
Trim and cut at an angle into 1-inch pieces about 3/4 pound asparagus (you should have about 4 cups). Or trim an equal amount of tender green beans and cut into 1-inch pieces. When the pot of gnocchi water comes to a boil, toss in the asparagus or beans, cook 3 minutes, then add the gnocchi and cook 3 minutes more. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a skillet, scoop up the gnocchi and asparagus or beans, and drop them into the pan, then add 1 cup Basil Paste (see below) and enough of the boiling water to make a sauce. To serve, top with 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano or Grana Padano.
Simple Basil Paste
Makes about 1 cup
3 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
Process all the ingredients with the steel blade of a food processor to a very fine paste. Scrape the bowl occasionally so that all the leaves are puréed.
*Recipe reprinted with permission from Lidia's Family Table cookbook (Knopf, 2004).
