Ruth Reichl's Avgolemono Soup: Simple Lemon & Rice Goodness for Souper (Soup, Salad, & Sammie) Sundays

Ruth Reichl has an amazing way with words, and food, and words about food. With a few sentences, she can have me craving whatever she is writing about. This means I am craving roughly ninety percent of the recipes included in My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. I checked out this journal-style cookbook from the library as I am trying to curtail my cookbook buying, but I fear I am going to succumb and purchase this one at some point.
 

I was looking for a simple soup recipe for this weekend and was immediately drawn to her Avgolemono Soup. Since this soup is easy to make and uses pantry staples like broth, rice, eggs and lemon, I have made it many times and have several variations posted on the blog--including a few vegan recipes. Reichl's is probably one of the more basic recipes but that in no way takes away from the comfort and deliciousness of the resulting soup.

Avgolemono Soup
Slightly Adapted from My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
(Serves 6)

6 cups chicken stock (I used a veggie, non-chicken broth)
1/3 cup rice (I used 1/2 cup)
1 lemon
4 eggs
salt

Bring the stock to a boil. Add the rice, lower the heat to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile grate the rind from the lemon into a bowl, then squeeze the lemon and add the juice to the rind. 

Separate the eggs, dropping the yolks into the lemon juice. (Save the whites for another purpose/use.) Add a pinch of salt and beat the yolks into the lemon juice and rind.

When the rice is tender, whisk about half a cup of the hot stock into the yolks, then slowly pour the yolks into the soup, stirring constantly. Cook gently for about 5 minutes, or until the soup is slightly thickened. Pour into bowls and eat slowly.   

 
Notes/Results: Silky, lemony, and delicious. This soup doesn't fail to make me happy. Reichl features it in the winter and says it is all the better if snow is falling outside but I think that it is good any time--even, or especially on a breezy spring day. I used a good vegan chicken-style broth and used 1/2 cup of long-grain white rice but otherwise kept the recipe the same. You could of course add in a carrot or some other veggies but I think it is pretty perfect as it is. I ate mine with some bread and a few slices of Gruyere cheese for an easy lunch. I will happily make it again.

I am linking this post up with Foodie Reads 2017. I have not done a good job so far this year in joining in this fun event celebrating all kinds of foodie books. You can check out the March Foodies Read linkup, hosted by Heather at Based on a True Story, to see what everyone is reading this month.  

 
We have some good friends with delicious dishes waiting in the Souper Sundays kitchen from last week--let's have a look!

Melynda of Our Sunday Cafe shared Orzo Pasta Salad with Pistachio Pesto and said, "The thing I needed to see was something reminiscent of spring. Something a bit lighter to enjoy for our meals, something with rich flavor, yet something that could be made with limited ingredients. Fortunately, our local co-op carries a nice selection of fresh herbs and vegetables from local farmers. That combined with a very interesting cookbook from the library, and we have a lovely springtime pasta salad to enjoy."

Claudia of Honey From Rock made Hawaiian Style Gumbo and said, "According to Wikipedia, Gumbo "likely derived its name from either a word from a Bantu language for okra (ki ngombo) or the Choctaw word for filé (kombo).  I have a wee planting of both the purple and green varieties of okra, though they do not hold their purple color after cooking. What I put together, and you can call it Hawaiian Gumbo or just Delicious Gumbo, whatever,  I figure the basics you need for a pot of it are covered here."

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor brought Grilled Salmon Spinach Salad and said, "...we opted to stop and pick up some salmon for a healthier dinner one day this week.  It was excellent. A bit of soy and honey and turned once in a grill pan.  Served with healthy fresh steamed broccoli and baked sweet potato. Now that's getting back on track! There was enough salmon left to make a pretty good salad for the next day's lunch too. I pulled stems off  fresh spinach, chopped some green onions and cut up the leftover salmon. Dressing was an Onion Dijon vinaigrette. (Forgive the blue plastic bowls. They are the designated bowls for work.)

Mahalo to everyone who for joined in this week! 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.)

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the wonderful Souper Sundays logo (created by Ivy at Kopiaste) to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

 Have a happy, healthy week!
 

Brown Rice Bowl with Stir-Fried Leek & Snow Peas, Grilled Tomatoes and Mahi Mahi with Heidi Swanson's Lemon Miso Compound Butter

I am way into compound butters. I probably shouldn't be way into butter in any form, but having a flavored butter in the fridge or freezer, ready to add a finishing touch and pop of flavor and goodness to a variety of dishes makes me happy. I love what a bit of intensely-flavored does to air-popped popcorn, roasted or steamed veggies, toast, and especially a piece of fish.

A tablespoon of compound butter will run you about 102 calories but it will go a long way in adding flavor and in making a dish more special and used judiciously, that's a calorie and fat splurge I am willing to indulge in. 

In this case, a savory Lemon-Miso compound Butter takes a brown rice and veggie bowl, topped with some mild-flavored local mahi mahi up a notch in flavor and helps make it a delicious dinner. The butter recipe comes from Heidi Swanson via her 101 Cookbooks Blog.

In addition to her Nori Compound Butter I made last month, Heidi Swanson has several posts with different varieties on her blog as well as inspiration for concocting your own flavors. Some of her compound butters include: Saffron Date Butter, Garlic Green Olive Butter , Scallion Dill Butter, and Roasted Strawberry Ginger Butter.  
 
On this blog I have posted my own recipes for Lemon Piccata Butter, Watercress Butter, and Quick Middle Eastern Spiced Butter. I typically make a compound butter out of my favorite curry powder that I use on popcorn--so good! There is no end to the possibilities. If you are vegan or dairy free, you can use vegan butter substitute and still enjoy all of the flavor.

 
Lemon-Miso Compound Butter
Slightly Adapted from Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks

Use a food processor to whip 1 stick (4 oz.) of room temperature unsalted butter until fluffy. Pulse in 1 tablespoon miso (I used white miso), zest of one lemon (or yuzu), 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne, and 1/2 teaspoon ground toasted cumin. 

Taste and adjust if needed. (I added 1 Tbsp of lemon juice) Fold in the sesame seeds. (I didn't see an amount of sesame seeds so used 1 heaping Tbsp.) Great on: brown rice bowls, roasted delicate squash, sautéed vegetables, roasted tomatoes...  

Heidi recommends storing your butter in the freezer in small amounts so that you can pop it out and add it to dishes. I like spooning at least some of the butter into a small silicone mold. (The molds I have are heart shaped and hold a scant tablespoon full of the butter.)  I freeze the molds, then pop out the butter and store it in an airtight container. It looks pretty and fun and doesn't melt too quickly when you top something with it.  Sometimes though, the compound butter doesn't make it out of the fridge before it gets used up. For example, some of this Lemon Miso butter is going to be added to a bunch of asparagus I just bought and will be steaming for dinner. Yum!

The Bowl: For my brown rice bowl, I used:

• 1 1/2 cups cooked sprouted brown rice
• Stir-fry mixture: 1 medium leek (white & light green parts only--cleaned, and sliced, thinly), a big handful of snow peas, (trimmed, but left whole), and two scallions, chopped; sauteed in 1/2 tsp macadamia oil +  1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil and topped with toasted sesame seeds.
• Pan-seared Roma tomato
• about 6 oz of mahi mahi fillet, divided into two pieces, seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon and smoked paprika and grilled. 
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Miso Compound Butter

Notes/Results: satisfying, filling and delicious, this bowl made a perfect Friday night dinner. The Lemon Miso Compound Butter adds a savory and tart flavor and umami to the fish and helped perk up the brown rice. I like the combination of the miso and lemon flavor with just a touch of spice from the cayenne and the toasty cumin flavor. I wanted a bit more lemon, so I added a tablespoon of the juice to my butter and was happy with the flavor. I found that with the miso, I didn't need to add salt but you should taste your butter for seasoning and add if needed. I plan on using up this compound butter on more fish and veggies--like the steamed asparagus mentioned above. I will happily make it again.

I'm linking this post up to I Heart Cooking Clubs where this week's theme is Accompaniments: Heidi Swanson recipes for sauces, condiments, toppings, spice blends of side dishes. You can see what people made by checking out the photo links on the post. 

And, I'm linking this post up to the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post. 

  
Happy Weekend!
 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The Chilbury Ladies' Choir" by Jennifer Ryan, Served with a Recipe for Scrambled Eggs with Leek & Tomato

On today's TLC Book Tour I am reviewing the The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan, a lovely novel about life in an English village during World War II and told by the journals and letters of its various members. Accompanying my review is a simple dinner of Scrambled Eggs with Leek and Tomato.   

Publisher's Blurb:

“Just because the men have gone to war, why do we have to close the choir? And precisely when we need it most!”

As England enters World War II’s dark early days, spirited music professor Primrose Trent, recently arrived to the village of Chilbury, emboldens the women of the town to defy the Vicar’s stuffy edict to shutter the church’s choir in the absence of men and instead “carry on singing.” Resurrecting themselves as “The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir,” the women of this small village soon use their joint song to lift up themselves, and the community, as the war tears through their lives.

Told through letters and journals, THE CHILBURY LADIES’ CHOIR moves seamlessly from budding romances to village intrigues to heartbreaking matters of life and death. As we come to know the struggles of the charismatic members of this unforgettable outfit– a timid widow worried over her son at the front; the town beauty drawn to a rakish artist; her younger sister nursing an impossible crush and dabbling in politics she doesn’t understand; a young Jewish refugee hiding secrets about her family, and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past– we come to see how the strength each finds in the choir’s collective voice reverberates in her individual life. In turns funny, charming and heart-wrenching, this lovingly executed ensemble novel will charm and inspire, illuminating the true spirit of the women on the homefront, in a village of indomitable spirit, at the dawn of a most terrible conflict.

Hardcover: 384 pages

Publisher: Crown (February 14, 2017)

My Review: 

I read a lot of historical fiction set during World War II, It is a time period that I find interesting. I especially like novels that give me glimpses into civilian life in the different countries involved, so I was happy to be on the tour for The Chilbury Ladies' Choir. The book did not disappoint, it's a lovely story, told in a epistolary style through the journals, letters and documents of the main characters. Mrs. Tilling (a widowed nurse with a son recently sent to fight), Kitty Winthrop (a thirteen year-old who longs to be a singer and marry a childhood friend who is infatuated with her older sister) and Silvie (the ten-year-old Jewish Czech evacuee, staying with the Winthrop family) write in diaries and journals--the author mentions in her afterward that ordinary civilians were encouraged by an Organization called Mass Observation to document daily lives during the war. Kitty's older sister Venetia (eighteen and the town beauty) writes detailed letters to a friend in London and Miss Paltry (the local midwife and an opportunist and bit of a grifter) writes to her sister. These five relate the story of life in the village of Chilbury, and what happens when Miss Prim, a newly arrived music teacher helps them start a women's choir as their church choir, with the majority of the town's men off to war, has been shut down. The all-female choir is shocking proposal for some, but soon even the reluctant members are coming together in song.  

If this sounds at all sleepy and boring, it isn't. There is plenty of intrigue going on in this small village and in addition to the main characters, we get to see both the joys and the heartaches of many of the villagers in this time of war. There are dark dealings, births, deaths, and romance in the six months in 1940 that we spend with Chilbury. I really enjoyed the different voices and perspectives--some characters likable, some not, and some both grew as individuals and even grew on me. The 380-some pages flew by and I found myself sad to leave this group of women. (There's a great Read It Forward article by Jennifer Ryan where she "explores" the village of Chilbury here.) If you like epistolary novels, historical fiction and unique takes on life during WWII, and books with strong female characters, you will surely enjoy this one. 

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Author Notes: Jennifer Ryan lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and their two children. Originally from Kent and then London, she was previously a nonfiction book editor.

You can connect with Jennifer on her website or Facebook.

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Food Inspiration:

There is food to be found in The Chilbury Ladies' Choir even during the war and the rationing for food. (Here's an interesting article on food rationing in Britain from the BBC if you are interested in learning more.) There were sandwiches--jam sandwiches, and several mentions of cucumber sandwiches with tea. Tea was also served biscuits, cake, porridge, and scones with strawberry jam. There were mentions of cod--baked cod and a fish supper and "a slap round the face with a freshly caught cod." There are mentions of sherry and stale cheese straws served at a party, potatoes for dinner, vegetable gardens and a large leek dug from the garden in Hattie's kitchen. A simple dinner of scrambled eggs that the Colonel cooks for Mrs. Tillings and another dinner of oxtail soup and bread and butter. There was a hidden jar of honey that tasted of rose petals and syrupy sweetness, a chestnut tree, cherry blossoms and a peachy perfume, and chocolate. There was soup and good food like eggs and bacon, meat and fruits to nurse Venetia back to health. There were also memories of non-war time foods too; cocktails at the Ritz and picnics full of pies, cherries and French madeleines and some traditional British fare like roast pheasant and Spotted Dick. 

For my book-inspired dish, I decided to combine the leek from Hattie's house, with the dinner of scrambled eggs that the Colonel cooks. While looking for inspiration for eggs scrambled with leeks, I saw a simple recipe for Scrambled Eggs with Leek and Tomato on a UK Co-Op site and since I had a locally-grown Roma tomato that needed to be used, along with a couple of leeks and local eggs, it seemed like a great match.
 

Scrambled Eggs with Leek and Tomato
Adapted from TheCo-op.com
(Serves 2) 

4 eggs
salt and black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1 medium leek, white and light green parts trimmed and thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, halved (I used Roma tomatoes)
4 slices bread of choice (I used 1 slice of sprouted wheat bread per serving), toasted 

In a small bowl, whisk eggs with sea salt and black pepper. Toast bread.  

Place butter or oil in a frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add the thinly-sliced leeks and halved tomatoes, cut side down. Cook for about 5 minutes, until leeks are soft, stirring so as not to burn them. Turn tomatoes over after about 3 minutes, once they are lightly browned and softened on the cut side. Once tomatoes are cooked, remove them from the pan and set them aside.

Distribute the leeks evenly in the pan and pour the eggs over the leeks, cooking them about 2-3 minutes, stirring them with a spatula and scrambling them until the eggs are set and they reach the desired consistency/doneness.

Plate toast with eggs on top and tomatoes on the side. Enjoy!

Notes/Results: This made a perfect light dinner, as the scrambled eggs were in the book but would be equally welcome at breakfast or lunch. The leeks are sweet and mellow and get the scrambled eggs a little something extra and the tomatoes add their sweetness and a pop of color on the plate. I made a single serving--two extra-large local eggs and one leek and one local Roma tomato and just used one slice of toast. I have another leek in my veggie drawer and if it doesn't find its way into the soup pot, I'll happily make this again tonight.  

I'm linking this post up to the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post. 

 

Note: A review copy of the "The Chilbury Ladies' Choir" was provided to me by the publisher and TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

Heidi Swanson's "Slurp-tastic Curry Herb Noodles" for Souper (Soup, Salad, & Sammie) Sundays'

Sometimes I just want to slurp up a big bowl of noodles and Heidi Swanson's "Slurp-tastic Herb Noodles" hit all of my comfort food buttons with pasta, curry, coconut milk  and lots of herbs. 

Heidi's recipe used a thin spinach pasta noodle and I used a thicker tagliatelle as it was the only good spinach pasta my grocery store had but I think you can't go wrong here. Heidi says that many thin pastas could be substituted; "Just try to imagine if it would go with a nice, hearty, spicy curry -some pasta will work better than others." I also made extra broth. 

Slurp-tastic Curry Herb Noodles
From Heidi Swanson at 101Cookbooks.com
(Serves 2 to 4)

4 oz thin, dried thin spinach pasta (I used a thicker pasta)
1 cup coconut milk (light is fine) (I used the whole can)
scant 1 Tbsp green or yellow curry paste (I used a heaping Tbsp of yellow curry)
1 1/2 cups lightly flavored vegetable broth
sea salt to taste
6 oz tofu, cut into small cubes or pieces (I pressed and drained my tofu overnight)
1/4 cup chives, minced
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup basil, chopped just before using
pinch of crushed red chile peppers

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. This is eventually going to be the pot you cook the pasta in.

In a separate large, thick-bottomed pot, bring 1/4 cup of the coconut milk to a simmer, mash and stir the curry paste into the coconut milk so there are no lumps. Now add the rest of the coconut milk and the vegetable broth and bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and stir in the tofu. Taste and decide if you need to add more curry paste or salt - if you do want to add more curry paste at this point, make a slurry by combining the additional curry paste and a bit of the broth, working any lumps out - add this to the pot.

Back at the pasta pot, salt the water generously and cook the pasta per package instructions. Drain.

Just before serving stir the chives, cilantro, and basil into the curry pot. To serve, place a nice helping of noodles in the center of each bowl and finish with a ladle of the curry and tofu along with a tiny pinch of crushed red chile peppers.

Notes/Results: Definitely slurp-tastic. This is such a quick and easy recipe that tastes delicious and is a great base for all kinds of adaptations--whatever kinds of noodles--pasta, rice, zoodles or other spiralized veggie noodles and add in any veggies in your fridge and you have a great meal. I used a yellow curry base but it would be good with green or red curry too. It definitely hit the spot and I will happily make it again.

We have some good friends with delicious dishes waiting in the Souper Sundays kitchen from last week--let's have a look!

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared Avocado Celery Salad and said, "Avocado and celery are two healthy alkalizing greens that come together in this crunchy delicious salad that is prepared quickly and easily. I'm always on the look out for new ways to include avocados in our meals. I was delighted to find this gluten free vegan recipe during my recent travels throughout Chile."

Vicki of I'd Rather Be At the Beach made Chicken Corn Chowder but there seems to be an issue with linking up to her blog today--so I will check back and add it when I can.

Mahalo to Judee and Vicki for joining in this week! 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.)

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the wonderful Souper Sundays logo (created by Ivy at Kopiaste) to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

 
Have a happy, healthy week!
 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "A Piece of the World" by Christina Baker Kline, Served with Fried Apple Stove-Top Skillet Cake

Today's TLC Book Tour stop looks behind a classic twentieth century American painting for the story of its intriguing subject. I'm reviewing A Piece of the World, a novel by Christina Baker Kline and accompanying my review is a recipe for Fried Apple Stove-Top Skillet Cake, inspired by the book.
 

Publisher's Blurb:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the smash bestseller Orphan Train, a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World.

“Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden.”

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.

As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.
Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.

This edition includes a four-color reproduction of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World.

Hardcover: 320 pages  

Publisher: William Morrow (February 21, 2017)

My Review:  

This book caught me by surprise with how absorbing it was and just how much I liked it. I have read and enjoyed Christina Baker Kline's previous books with the big exception of her most well-known, The Orphan Train (don't ask me why--I have a copy that never seems to quite make it to the top of my TBR pile), so I expected to find a well-told story, but it was so much more. I remember first learning about the painter Andrew Wyeth in an art history class and was intrigued by his realist style and his moody and evocative paintings--arguably the most famous being Christina's World--so I had an interest in slipping into the story behind the artwork. As a child, Baker Kline was given a woodblock print by her father that was inspired by the painting and in A Piece of the World, she imagines what the life of the model was like.  

"Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth, 

reprinted from an article by Hannah Kim, Inside/Out.com and The Museum of Modern Art
 

The book is set in Maine from the early 1900s through the late 1940s and tells both of the life of Christina Olson, the subject behind the painting--as well as her relationship with Andrew Wyeth, who spent several years visiting the Olson farm and painting the scenery, Christina and her brother, and forming a relationship and a friendship with them. The story is told from Christina's point of view and goes back and forth in time from her childhood and the illness (thought to be Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease) that left her with deteriorating bones and joints to her adult life and the visits from Wyeth. Christina's world is small and for the most part contained in the family home and farm and she is bitter and not always easy to like--although it is easy to understand why when you consider how some of her choices were made for her by her parents and of course her health. She is a strong and independent character and the way that the author tells her stories--the bright moments, the sadness, and all of the small details is beautiful and engaging and had me wanting the best for her. The Maine setting, details about Wyeth's painting and Christina's family history (connected to the Salem witch Trials) are interesting and Baker Kline's words bring it to life in vivid detail. I thought it might be a slow, too-languorous read but I found it hard to put down and I was sorry when I finished this remarkable tale. Highly recommended. 

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Author Notes: Christina Baker Kline is the author of five novels. She lives outside of New York City and on the coast of Maine.
 
Find out more about Kline at her website, connect with her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.

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Food Inspiration:

There is food aplenty in A Piece of the World--mostly homey food that fits the time periods in the story. There are clambakes, eggs from the family chickens, a picnic lunch of egg sandwich on thick-sliced bread, a cucumber, and two pieces of fried apple cake, bread, porridge, dry oatcakes, chicken pie, pot roast, fish stew and chowder, potatoes-boiled and mashed, peas or carrots, casserole or stews, tea and fresh-squeezed lemonade, split pea soup with ham and chicken soup, Swedish bread called svartbröd, with salmon and sour cream and a fried potato cake called raggamunk, and lingonberries, a meatloaf sandwich, sliced thin on bread with butter, sandwiches of butter and molasses on thick sourdough bread, cottage cheese, bread, cheese and hard boiled eggs, butterscotch candies, drop biscuits, canned and pickled vegetables, jam and preserves, suckling pig roasted in a pit in the yard, stewed apples and dried-blueberry cake, chicken stew with squash dumplings, a New Year's drink called a Whaler's Toddy of rum, molasses and cloves in a mug with boiling water, blended with a cinnamon stick, oranges from Florida, chipped beef and noodles, sliced turkey and ham, pickled beans and beets, gingerbread cookies, strawberry, blueberry and wild rhubarb pies, fried chicken, and appetizers of red radishes, deviled eggs and green olives with pimento.

For my book-inspired book, I knew it had to be a version (at least of of sorts) of the fried apple cake that Christina is 'famous' for as it is mentioned several times throughout the book. 

"She wants to know my famous fried apple cake recipe and I explain it step by step: how you peel and thinly slice the apples, fry the slices over a low flame in a heavy black skillet, adding a stream of molasses until the apples are soft in the middle and crispy on the edges, then turn the skillet over onto a platter. (I don't tell her that I can no longer turn the skillet on my own and have to ask one of my brothers to do it.)" 

-A Piece of the World 

 
From the description, Christina's cake sounds more like a scalloped sort of apple dish that ends up in a cake-like form as there is no mention of anything beyond thinly-sliced peeled apples and molasses. I looked online for fried apple cake but couldn't find anything that sounded like that. What did pop up were a few stack and skillet cakes--most of them started on the stove and then finished in the oven--but a couple I found were cooked entirely on the store in a skillet and that's what I decided to make. I am sure it isn't the cake that the author intended but it intrigued me. Since I was craving cake, I don't love the flavor of molasses, and I wanted to see how well it would turn out--I decided to give it a try.

I picked this Apple Skillet Cake recipe from Christy Jordan at SouthernPlate.com and I made just a few small changes. I also reduced the amount to fit into my small frying pan--not needing a big cake sitting about. My changes and the amounts I used for the smaller pan are below--you can follow the above link to the site for the original recipe and steps.

Fried Apple Stove-Top Skillet Cake
Adapted slightly from SouthernPlate.com

Apple Topping:
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
3 apples of choice, peeled and thinly sliced (I used 2 Honeycrisp + 1 Granny Smith)

Cake:
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch salt
2 Tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup apple juice or water
1 egg

To make apple topping: Melt butter in a small skillet over medium heat and stir in cinnamon and sugar. When mixture liquefies, layer in apple slices. Cover skillet and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes--until apple slices have softened. 

Meanwhile, stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl until well mixed. In a separate bowl combine melted butter, evaporated milk, apple juice (or water) and the egg and mix until the egg is well-beaten. Add liquid mixture to flour mixture and mix just until just moistened and combined. 

Reduce heat on apples to low. Carefully spoon batter over the apple slices in the skillet as evenly as possible. Cover pan and cook on low for 20 minutes, until cake is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. 

Remove cake from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Carefully turn over onto a serving plate and serve warm. Enjoy! 

Notes/Results: I was really happy with how this cake turned out--perfectly moist and full of sweet cinnamon and apple flavor. I wasn't sure if it would have the texture of a more pudding-like steamed cake or an oven-baked cake and was happy it was the latter. Mine puffed up quite a bit--you can see in the collage photo above and you can see that it has a nice moist crumb to it. Things would have been perfect if I had not lost confidence in turning it over onto the small plate I wanted to use. I thought it would be easier to transfer it to a dinner plate and then carefully move it to a serving plate and that ended up being my undoing as because as careful as I was, using two large spatulas/pancake flippers, my cake broke and I lost the side. I had no problem eating the edge that came off and the rest sliced up just fine. Next time, I'll flip directly onto the plate I plan to serve it on. ;-) And there will be a next time. I am a fan of anything apple and this cake was delicious. I will definitely make it again.  

I'm linking this post up to the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post. 

 

Note: A review copy of the "A Piece of the World" was provided to me by the publisher Harper Collins and TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.