Like mother, like daughter

Nestled on the shelf of cookbooks in my kitchen is a well-worn, stained and grease-spattered little journal tied together with a faded green ribbon. It is the place where I have collected recipes from loved ones, mostly my mom, for the past 10 years.Admittedly, it’s a mess. Only I can navigate its pages. And only I can see that inside its frayed papers, sticky notes and yellowing faxed pages is a rich culinary history between mother and daughter.

Growing up in a home with a food writer for a mom was a nice thing. Obviously, I ate well. However, I never considered taking up the same profession until several years into a very different one. Now that I am writing about food professionally, it’s difficult to write any story without thinking about my mother and occasionally asking her for help.

She says it all began when, as a new mom, she would make salads before dinner, with me sitting in my car seat on the counter with the rest of the ingredients. When I began to eat solid food, she would buy fresh vegetables, cook and puree them and freeze them in ice-cube trays, to be thawed in my steel baby bowl over hot water. She says I would hum with pleasure at their taste. To this day, I’m occasionally caught humming while I eat.

On a recent ravioli-making kick of mine, Mom told me that for my first birthday, she made homemade ravioli. This triggered other memories of dishes I have inherited from her. I was inspired to go back through my little green cooking journal to find all the cooking traditions that we share, either by accident (such as the ravioli) or deliberately, as in the case of dozens of recipes she has dictated, faxed or e-mailed to me through the years, many of which are stuffed into that little grease-spattered journal.

Mom is a big advocate of a healthy breakfast. She always made extra time in the morning to cook a beautiful first meal. Although many of my culinary memories of home are of breakfast, the only breakfast recipe I found in my little book is scrawled on the back of a grocery receipt.

It is for what came to be known in our house as, simply, big pancake. Based on the traditional Scandinavian Dutch baby oven pancake, it is a rather theatrical and delicious dish that’s a real crowd pleaser. Without any backbreaking effort on the part of the chef, those dining are treated to a gorgeous presentation and lively flavors that kick the day into gear quite nicely.

Big pancake is topped with fresh berries, a little confectioners’ sugar and a squirt of lemon. As the sugar dissolves in the lemon juice, something like frosting emerges. For a little girl not allowed to eat sugary cereals and Pop-Tarts like my friends at school, this was a treat.

These days, I often make big pancake on weekends and invite my guests to peer through the oven door as the sides rise high above the edge of the pan, as Mom invited me to do. Like a snowflake, it is another one of nature’s sculptures that’s unique each time.

I also found a sticky note with her adaptation of a pie she started making after it was published in the Los Angeles Times’ “California Cookbook” when she was a staff writer there. For another sweet treat (but never for breakfast), the ingredients and a few short instructions for purple prune plum pie are scrawled in my own kitchen shorthand on this tiny piece of paper — clearly the result of a last-minute phone call home to Mom.

As a child, I remember this pie as my older sister’s favorite, made each summer for her birthday. It was sort of a mature pie, if pies can be mature, but sure enough, in my adulthood, it has become one of my favorite summer desserts.

There is a folded wad of glossy faxed sheets with one of my Mom’s newspaper articles, headlined, “These Mexican, Italian Soups Are Just as Good as Mom’s but Quicker.” It is her story about the way her mother used to make soups (one can of condensed tomato soup plus one can of milk) and how she in turn made soups for her mom. It’s a touching reach across generations, especially now as I write about my culinary relationship with my own mother.

The escarole soup in that article is an old favorite I often serve to friends. I remember making it one evening several years ago for my boyfriend.

We ate it out of giant mismatched pasta bowls on the floor in front of a fire on a particularly chilly spring night and talked, for the first time, about sharing a life together. We have since married, and he still requests that soup.

Another recipe stuffed into the pages of the journal is a flan loved dearly by my Uncle Ian, who passed away when I was 12 and considered himself a flan aficionado.

The recipe resulted from the time Mom and some of her colleagues in the test kitchen faced a surplus of egg yolks after an angel-food-cake project. One colleague, originally from the Philippines, suggested creating a flan in her country’s style using evaporated milk.

Uncle Ian claimed he had tasted only one flan he would consider a 10-pointer; it was in Spain many years before, and nothing had come close since. Soon after the Philippine-style flan was born, Uncle Ian had his wisdom teeth extracted, and Mom offered the flan to him as something soft and sweet to eat during his recovery. A few days later, a package arrived containing an opal pendant and a note thanking her, with the flan’s score, 9 points.

I remember it as the first very technical recipe she taught me. I attempt it once a year or so, each time feeling a little nervous about cooking it to that point of perfection, hoping Uncle Ian is watching over me. Each time I serve it to guests and tell the story, I get a little teary but always end up smiling; what a joyful tribute to family.

Just before my wedding, my mom and I had dinner together at one of Mario Batali’s New York restaurants, Lupa. We shared a wonderful kale salad and with each bite tried to figure out what was in it.

That weekend, the last weekend before the wedding, we made a big feast for those who had come out to the wedding site early. Included on the menu was the kale salad. We agreed that it was delicious but that it wasn’t quite right. Did it need more lemon?

In the year that has passed since that night, the two of us probably have attempted the dish a dozen times, and each time, there is an e-mail revealing the new approach.

By now, I have a feeling it is a very different salad from what Mr. Batali is serving at Lupa.

The current rendition has abandoned the lemon and gone for orange instead, even adding a little peel, and it’s wonderfully refreshing. I think we might stick with this version and just call it “mother-daughter kale salad.”

These days, Mom and my kitchen play is cross-continental, much of it taking place by e-mail. “Mom — having the in-laws for dinner on Saturday; quick … help,” or “Sara Kate — what are you doing with mustard greens these days — my garden is overflowing.”

Although I will always consider Mom the master chef between us, we’re able to enjoy a little more of an equal exchange of information. We have written several articles together; we created the menu for my wedding last summer; and we challenge ourselves to figure out recipes for dishes we sample in New York restaurants when she visits me.

Discovering the legacy of a love of cooking that my mother and I share has inspired me not only to pursue a second career, but also to continue our years of kitchen exchanges.

No matter how close or far apart we live, whether I’m perched in a car seat on her counter or in my own kitchen three time zones away, our cooking relationship grows.

I hope one day to pass on to my own child the wealth of knowledge and experience that my mom and I have collectively created and preserved in our years of cooking together. I will say to my child, “Your grandmother taught me everything I know.”

Big pancake

2 eggs

½ cup milk

½ cup unbleached flour

1 teaspoon sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (½ stick)

Fresh blueberries, blackberries or sliced strawberries

Confectioners’ sugar

Lemon wedges

Fresh mint for garnish, optional

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

With either blender or whisk, combine eggs and milk. Then add flour and sugar, and whirl or whisk to blend. Let stand at room temperature a few minutes.

Put a 10-inch iron skillet or pie plate in oven with butter. When butter is melted and sizzling, remove and swirl butter to coat pan sides. Pour in batter.

Bake on center rack of oven until pancake has puffed and risen above sides of pan and is golden brown and the center set, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Serve immediately in wedges with berries, a sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar and a squeeze of lemon. Garnish with fresh mint, if desired. Makes 4 servings.

Purple prune plum pie

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust of choice

1 cup sugar

¼ cup flour

1 tablespoons cinnamon

20 to 30 Italian prune plums, pitted and halved

2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or creme fraiche, optional

Prepare crust and prick bottom several times with tines of a fork.

Combine sugar, flour and cinnamon in bowl. Sprinkle ¼ of mixture over bottom of pie shell. Arrange plum halves in overlapping circles, filling inside of pie shell in two layers. Sprinkle remaining sugar mixture over top of plums. Dot with butter.

Bake in preheated 425-degree oven for 10 minutes.

Turn oven down to 350 degrees, and bake for another 30 minutes. If crust begins to darken, put a ring of foil around edge of pie. Serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or creme fraiche, if desired. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Italian escarole soup

For a different presentation, form turkey into larger meatballs than specified in recipe, one per person, and increase simmering time to ensure that turkey is cooked through.

3/4 pound lean ground turkey

½ cup dry bread crumbs

3 eggs

½ cup grated Romano cheese

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 cups chicken stock

1 bunch escarole, trimmed and torn into bite-size pieces

Hot red pepper flakes, optional

Combine ground turkey, bread crumbs, 1 egg, ¼ cup Romano, ¼ cup Parmesan, oregano and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl. Mix thoroughly, then form into 1-inch balls.

In large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add meatballs and cook, turning, until browned all over. Set aside.

In large pot, heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and saute until onion is tender.

Add stock and bring to boil. Add escarole. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add meatballs and simmer 5 minutes longer, or until meatballs are cooked through.

Meanwhile, combine remaining 2 eggs and remaining cheeses in small bowl, and stir with fork to blend. Slowly pour egg mixture into hot soup, stirring constantly. Cover and simmer just until egg is set, about 1 minute. Season to taste with salt, pepper and hot red pepper flakes, if desired. Serve immediately. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Uncle Ian’s 9-point flan

1 cup sugar, divided

8 to 10 egg yolks

1 12-ounce can evaporated milk

½ teaspoon vanilla or ¼ cup rum

Caramelize ½ cup sugar by putting in small skillet over medium heat until sugar begins to melt. Mix melting part into dry parts in skillet. When evenly melted and deep golden color, pour into bottom of a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. Set aside and cool.

Mix egg yolks with remaining ½ cup sugar. Add evaporated milk and mix well. Flavor with vanilla or rum. Pour mixture into loaf pan.

Place on center rack of preheated 325-degree oven and cook for about 30 minutes, carefully monitoring. Center of pan should jiggle when moved. Cool and chill.

When ready to serve, turn upside down on a plate and shake gently, listening for when flan separates from pan. Carefully remove pan, allowing caramelized sugar syrup to drizzle down sides of flan. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Mother-daughter kale salad

2 bunches curly green kale or lacinato kale, spines removed, cut into large bite-size pieces

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon fresh orange peel, cut in very thin strips

Salt and pepper

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup pecorino cheese, cut into tiny cubes

Steam kale until it begins to wilt, and refresh it in an ice bath. Drain immediately.

Combine orange juice, orange peel, and salt and pepper to taste. When ready to serve, slowly whisk in olive oil until emulsified.

Toss kale with just enough dressing to coat, massaging it into leaves. Sprinkle with pecorino cheese. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Serve at room temperature. Makes 4 servings.