a momentary lapse of disconnect & A Jerk

Tags

Jamaican Jerk, Jamaican jerk chicken, jerk, jerk chicken, jerk rub, zeppole di San Giuseppe

Oh, my beloved blog, how I have missed you! And all of you, my blogging friends. It’s been a while.

It seems that my life is destined to go down a different path than the one I was on. Not a path chosen by me, and quite a challenging one at that. In the last few months since my last post, my world has been turned upside down. Literally. And when I look back at the topic of my last post, it was about LOVE. It was about hearts. And funnily enough, what led to my total disconnect with the blogging world, with life itself, was my heart. My heart shattering into a million little pieces. My heart, which for just a brief moment, stopped beating.

My daughters, those two precious beings. How did I create such fierce little creatures? Two amazing young girls with so much love, so much empathy. And so brave! If there was ever question to my parenting skills, they are proof that I have done well.

After a harsh and brutal winter, spring. Thank goodness it’s finally here! With its arrival comes a new beginning, new life. Rebirth. Soon, the sun will begin to warm our bodies and souls, and we will live again. I will return to my kitchen and create. I will nurture our souls with food. Fresh foods. Light and healthy foods. Foods which will make us happy again.

Someone told me the other day that whatever my dad did when I was a broken little girl, after my mom died, has made me the strong person that I am today. Resilient. Capable of overcoming and flourishing. That comment brought to mind what an exemplary father he was. My dad. So on March 19th, Father’s Day in Italy, also known as La Festa di San Giuseppe, the girls and I made Zeppole di San Giuseppe to honour him. In honour of him and all the exemplary fathers out there. I had made these yummy zeppole di San Giuseppe last year for this very occasion, and having gone the healthy route last year by baking the dough in the oven and filling them with a custard cream, this year I opted to fry these little babies, just the way my dad loved them. Fried zeppole, a Neopolitan specialty. I made a delicious ricotta cheese filling to stuff them with. Perfect for soothing our souls!

And now, about The Jerk. What can I say? Not much really, except that if you’ve never had Jamaican Jerk before, you really should give it a try. Perfect for marinating meat or fish, a jerk is a heat-punched rub or wet marinade made up of many ingredients, with the two key ingredients being the allspice berry and scotch bonnet peppers. You can use jalepeños if scotch bonnets are hard to come by. After perusing a variety of recipes, I noticed that thyme can also be a key ingredient to a Jamaican Jerk. An important element to cooking a jerk is the type of wood it’s grilled over. In Jamaica, it’s usually grilled over pimento wood, the tree which gives us the allspice berry, or sweet wood, the jamaican name for the laurel tree, from which we get our bay leaves. As it’s highly unlikely that I would find either of these woods here in Montreal, I soaked some fresh bay leaves in water and spread them over the grill, with the chicken spread over the bay leaves. You can absolutely cook a jerk in the oven, but seeing as spring is here I thought it the perfect occasion to fire up the barbecue and grill it. A jerk on the barbie. Perfect!

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Jerk Rub/Marinade

2 scotch bonnet or jalepeño peppers, or 1 if less heat is desired, seeded & chopped

4 green onions, chopped

4 tablespoons of ground allspice

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon of grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1 piece of ginger, about 2 teaspoons, chopped

4 or 5 bay leaves, crumbled

Fresh thyme leaves, 2 or 3 teaspoons

2 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil

1 whole chicken, cut-up, or your favourite chicken pieces, about 2 pounds

Add all of the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a smooth paste is formed. You may need to add a few more drops of oil. Rub the marinade over the chicken pieces, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours.

 

Soak an entire package of fresh bay leaves in some water at least 1 hour prior to grilling. When ready to barbecue, spread the leaves over the grill and lay the chicken over the top. Grill the meat until done and voila! You’ve got a fiery hot Jamaican Jerk!

 

 

Zeppole di San Giuseppe

Tags

baked zeppole, custard, easter, Easter pastries, zeppole, zeppole di San Giuseppe

San Giuseppe is Italian for Saint Joseph and March 19 is the Festa di San Giuseppe (Feast of Saint Joseph) in Italy. And we know how much Italians love and pay homage to their Saints. They love to celebrate and with all the saints out there, you can be sure that there’s a Saint being celebrated somewhere in Italy probably every day of the year!

Although the Festa di San Giuseppe was first celebrated in Sicily, it has now spread throughout all of Italy. Legend has it that Sicily suffered a terrible drought and famine during the Middle Ages. It destroyed most of their crops and many people died of starvation. The people of Sicily began praying to Saint Joseph, begging for his help, and in return they would celebrate his name day with religious feasts and an abundance of food. An abundance of food is quite clearly at the centre of everything for Italians, isn’t it?  Well, their prayers were answered at midnight on March 19 and the incessant rain that followed turned the dry and barren lands of Sicily into a lush, green, fertile Island!

Zeppole is, basically, deep-fried dough and sprinkled with sugar, much like a sugared doughnut. Zeppole di San Giuseppe, made specifically on Saint Joseph’s Day, can be either fried or baked and are then stuffed with either a custard or a ricotta cheese filling. They are everywhere in Italy on March 19, which incidentally also happens to be Father’s Day in Italy. Here in Montreal, these specialty zeppole can be found in Italian bakeries just before the 19th of March and right up until Easter. Come Easter Monday, and they vanish!. Just like the Easter Bunny!

So to pay homage to my father and to keep my girls rooted with our Italian traditions, I made some for my family. They love these things! The girls were super excited! Peter was questioning why I was baking them instead of going the deep-fry method. Can you guess his preference? I wanted something not so heavy and oily on this day of homage. Besides, I wanted to be able to have two and not feel guilty!

Pastry Dough for Zeppole  makes 8

4 eggs

80 g of butter

200 ml of water

120 g of flour

1 teaspoon of sugar

Pinch of salt

Using your fingers, break-up the butter into small pieces and put them into a small saucepan. Add the water, salt and sugar. Heat over medium heat until butter has melted. Remove from heat. Add the flour, sifting it into the butter mixture and whisking until smooth.

Return to heat and with a wooden spoon, keep stirring until the dough comes together and forms a ball. Remove from heat once you see a white film on the bottom of your saucepan. Place the dough on a plate to cool.

Place the cooled dough into the bowl of an electric mixer. You could also use a hand-held mixer or do this by hand. Beat in one egg at a time, ensuring that each egg has been incorporated into the dough before the addition of the next egg.

Scoop the batter into a piping bag. I find this easier to do with the bag draped open over a glass.

Place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Using a star Wilton tip #20, pipe a circle, about 8 cm in diameter. I made my zeppole 3 circles wide (go around in circles 3 times). I then repeated this procedure with a second layer on top.

Bake in a 375 degree F/190 C oven for 35 minutes, until golden on top. Leave in oven for 10 minutes. Once cooled, cut the zeppole in 1/2 and fill with vanilla custard. You can sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar over the zeppole if you wish. You can also add a little splash of colour with a candied cherry in the centre.

Vanilla Custard

500 ml of whole milk

50 g of flour

6 egg yolks

150 g of sugar

1 vanilla bean

Pour the milk into a small saucepan. Slice open the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds and add both to the milk. Heat over medium-low, until it just begins to simmer. Remove from heat. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar. Add to the hot milk mixture. Whisk in the flour and return to heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until it begins to boil. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and cool completely.