Classic Comfort Food from Perigee’s Authors
Nonnie’s Chocolate Pudding from Dana Angelo White’s First Bites
I was raised on my grandmother’s chocolate pudding, and it is an honor to make it for my girls. Make this pudding for a calcium-filled desert all by itself or make trifle, icebox cake, pudding pops, and other goodies.
1 tablesppon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla or almond extract
In a medium saucepan, combine milk and butter. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring gently to melt butter.
In a small bowl, combine sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch—add water and mix to create a paste. Add paste into milk mixture and whisk well to combine. Raise heat to medium and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon until thick and bubbly (about 5 minutes).
Remove from heat and stir in extract. Transfer to a bowl or 4 rameskins, cover with plastic wrap (make sure plastic is touching pudding to prevent a skin from forming), and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
Gluten-Free Hushpuppies from April Peveteaux’s The Gluten-Free Cheat Sheet
This recipe takes me back to the time of Long John Silver’s. While there’s no way I could eat there today, I can at least pretend with this gluten-free version of a fun seafood side.
Cook Time: 6 minutes per batch
½ cup all-purpose gluten-free flour
½ cup gluten-free cornmeal
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Combine flour, baking soda, cornmeal, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl.
In separate bowl, beat egg and buttermilk together. Add shallot to mixture and thoroughly combine.
Add to dry mixture, just combining. Do not overmix.
Heat oil in deep pot or cast iron skillet on medium-high. Use small amount of test batter to see if oil is hot enough to begin frying hushpuppies.
Using tablespoon, drop balls of hushpuppy batter into oil. Leave plenty of room in skillet, working in batches if necessary. Do not crowd hushpuppies! If hushpuppies start to burn on outside faster than cooking inside, lower temperature to medium.
Cook hushpuppies until golden brown, approximately 3 minutes on each side, flipping with slotted spoon if dough does not flip itself. Remove from oil and allow to drain on paper towel. Serve hushpuppies with tartar sauce, or as a side to chili, soup, or fried fish.
French Crêpes Sucrées from Clotilde Dusoulier’s Edible French
Celebrate Candlemas or Mardi Gras with a fresh batch of French crêpes. And if anyone objects to it, a golden round dotted with butter and sprinkled with sugar should be enough to flip that naysayer comme une crêpe.
Makes about fifteen 9 ½-inch (24 centimeter) crêpes.
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (240 milliliters) milk
1 cup (240 milliliters) water
2 tablespoons rum (optional)
Vegetable oil for cooking
Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl, and form a well in the center. Crack in the eggs, one by one, stirring them in gently with a whisk to incorporate with some, but not all, of the dry ingredients.
Pour in the milk, then the water, slowly, whisking as you pour. Keep whisking until all the flour is incorporated; the batter will be thin. Add the rum, if using, and whisk again. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and preferably overnight.
Remove the batter from the fridge and whisk it again. Set a thick-bottomed, low-rimmed skillet over high heat. When it is hot, brush it lightly with oil.
Ladle just enough batter into the pan to cover it thinly, and swirl the pan around to form a round disk. Cook until the top is set and the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 1 minute. Run the tip of hard spatula around the crêpe to loosen, peek underneath, and flip it when you see that it is nice and golden.
Cook the other side until golden, about 30 seconds, and slip it out of the pan onto a plate and serve. Grease the skillet again every two crêpes, or as needed.
