Both the kids and my husband have had some icky cough this past week. Sam’s been teething on top of it all, poor guy. After a couple nights of soup, I get tired of eating sick feeling sorts of foods. Sam so much as full on refused to eat (he never refuses to eat!) the plain buttered rice that I made him yesterday for lunch (I should know better to feed plain rice to my anchovy-loving baby), so I decided to make something that was easy on everyone’s bad feeling throats but enough to be interesting for me, who has thus far avoided this round of sick.
I love Dutch babies–they’re always dramatic and couldn’t be easier to make. Noah cracked the eggs and we popped it in the oven while the apples were cooking. My recipe is from Rick and Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures (Noah knows where to flip in the book and it’s one of his favorite cooking jobs looking for it), but it’s the same as this one except it uses 2 more tablespoons of butter and omits the salt and vanilla (not bad ideas, but I kind of like the plainness of Rick’s).
The apples are from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book which is a comprehensive, fascinating vintage book. Jane Grigson is a treasure though as a food writer. If you don’t believe me, make these apples. The recipe in the book is a little non-exact, but cooking with apples is just kind of that way. I’ll try to fill in some of the holes dear Jane left. You could complicate these with cinnamon, but you should trust Jane’s wisdom in letting the apples speak for their beautiful selves.
Jane Grigson’s Buttered Apples
Peel, core, and quarter some apples (1/person or more if you like). Cut the quarters into thirds or fourths depending on the size of your apples. Toss them in bowl with the juice of 1/2 of a lemon and coat them with the juice.
Melt 2 T of butter in a large skillet (this is for the 4 apples I used) over medium low heat. Add the apples and cook in one layer until the bottoms start to turn “autumn brown.” Turn them over and sprinkle them with sugar to taste. Continue to saute them until they start to be tender-ish and start to caramelize.
At this point, deglaze your pan with some kind of delicious booze. I used whiskey because I like it with apples. Rum, hard cider, or the best of all, Calvados all would also be good. Let the tasty booze reduce down a bit, then add enough heavy cream to cover the bottom of your pan (I would guess this was about 1/3 of a cup, but I eyeballed it).
Turn down the heat and simmer the apples in the sauce for maybe 5 minutes until they are tender. Off heat, add 1 more tablespoon of butter and swirl it into the sauce. Pour them over your yummy Dutch baby.
~E Made This! 