Raspberry Almond Clafoutis, your weekend gateaway Cook List
Roasted Raspberry Orange Chicken, Shrimp Tempura and Crusty Quinoa Salad round out the weekend cooking list.
Is there an easier to put together – and fun to say – dessert than clafoutis? You simply mix the dough ingredients, pour the fruit into a buttered dish, pour the batter and bake. The result: an eggy, pudding-like cake filled and smeared with pockets of sweet and sour fruit.
This new raspberry almond clafoutis by David Tanis replaces regular all-purpose flour with almond flour, which makes the cake slightly firmer and has a soft, floral almond flavor. David is reaching for raspberries here, but you can also use other berries or pitted cherries. Use it to complement your next dinner, or—as I often do when I cook—put it together for Saturday morning breakfast and weekend snacks.
Before we leave the land of clafoutis, I want to share this delicious version from Melissa Clark with corn and chard. A good dose of Gruyère adds saltiness and nuttiness, and the “silky vegetable” quotient of roasted leeks.
In yesterday’s Cooking newsletter, Sam Sifton encouraged us to roast chicken this weekend – summer and its oven-proof temperatures are just around the corner. I think it’s never a bad idea to do as Sam says, so I check out Genevieve Ko’s Roasted Orange Chicken, a cross between delicious Cantonese soy sauce chicken and spicy American Chinese orange chicken. Tangerine slices, peel and all, fry until tender with the chicken and add their juices to a syrupy glaze. Granted, it’s not citrus season anymore, but all the more reason to roast tangerines (or clementines or tangerines) in a hot oven with soy sauce and brown sugar.
It’s also soon too hot to fry anything, which means it’s time to make shrimp tempura, the perfect combination of sweet, chunky shrimp and salty, crunchy shell. As Naz Deravian explains in her recipe notes, using seltzer adds air to the batter; cooling ingredients, including flour, prevent gluten from forming and make food softer and lighter.
More meals for that almost-summer moment: David Tanis’ cheese-crusted cauliflower combines warm flavors (spicy olives and anchovies) with cold nighttime comfort (roasted cauliflower, melted cheese). Like this Creamy Polenta with Asparagus, Peas and Mint, a great vegetarian recipe by Melissa Clark.
We started with dessert, so let’s finish with a salad, specifically Ali Slagle’s Quinoa Salad. With cucumber, peppers, parsley and olives and a lemon dressing, it’s a sort of Greek tabuleh-y quinoa salad. Make a big batch on Sunday to pat yourself on the back for lunch on Monday and Tuesday.
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