"Craig Claiborne's Favorites" - French Pot Roast with Red-Wine Sauce

Date I made this recipe: November 7, 2010

Craig Claiborne’s Favorites (Series II) from The New York Times
Published by Times Books
© 1975
Recipe: French Post Roast with Red-Wine Sauce p. 291 (September 21, East Hampton, “Side Dish, Front and Center” with Pierre Franey) (Note: this recipe calls for an overnight marinade plus 3 hours of cooking)

Back around the first of October, I was listening to the radio show, The Splendid Table, when I heard Lynne Rossetto Kasper and guest, southern writer, John T. Edge, talk about the influence Craig Claiborne had on American cooking. At the time, I made a mental note to make something of his, seeing as how I have a couple of his cookbooks but one thing led to another and here we are in November. Time flies when you are having cooking fun!

I don’t know as I had much knowledge of Craig until I started reading James Villas’ cookbooks several years ago. Craig and James were good friends and James often mentioned cooking with Craig (and partying with Craig) in his books.

Like James Villas and John T. Edge, Craig Claiborne was from the south. There’s just something about southern cooking and southern life that intrigues me even though I can’t imagine living there (because of critters—like snakes and whatnot).

Craig, though, branched out beyond the south, not only with his recipes but with his writing; as restaurant critic and food editor of The New York Times, he got to go around the world without leaving Manhattan. The availability of a vast variety of food is one of the many things I love about New York.

What I really like about this cookbook is that each chapter is a theme. On one page, you can find a recipe for Black Forest Cake, taken from the entry on February 9 (1975) titled Pride of the Forest, and a few pages later, you’ll find a chapter titled Persian Cookery. Let me just say that I had a hard time selecting a recipe but am glad I waited until now to make the pot roast with wine—a perfect dish for a fall day. (Let me also just say that my house had a wonderful mulled wine smell in it for two days thanks to the wine and spice marinade this roast had to rest in!).

And speaking of marinade, you should know that you need to plan in advance to make this recipe. Your meat has to marinade minimally overnight (if not longer) and then you need to allow 3 hours for cooking time. Making the marinade was a piece of cake though, so don’t let a little thing like that deter you! You should also know that I emptied out two bottles of wine for the marinade but drew the line at opening a third bottle and that was wise because as it is, the stuff splashed all over my refrigerator and floor. Oops! (And no, I didn’t have a little nip as I was preparing the dish.) (And let me just say that this is when it pays to lay in a case of “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s!).

And speaking of wine, let me just mention that Craig (and James Villas) often cooked and collaborated with Frenchman (chef) Pierre Franey. Craig and Pierre share this recipe and Pierre likely had a hand in the wine selection, both for the table and the pot roast.

And speaking (once again) of the pot roast, the pot roast is actually a “side dish” to a potato recipe they named Potatoes Chateau Chinon (p. 292). I decided long ago to make one dish per cookbook and while these potatoes sounded good, I was more interested in the roast and so went with the side dish instead. (And by the way, isn’t making the roast a side dish creative?) But you, dear reader, are not held to my standard so knock yourselves out!

Finally, I have waxed poetic about James Villas cookbooks in previous blogs but that’s more due to his mother (and co-author), Martha Pearl Villas. That was one damned funny woman and to this day, her recipe for Coconut Cake is one of the best things I’ve ever made. You can read about her and it on my blog posting from June 27, 2007; you can also link to it by clicking on “Martha Pearl Villas” in the “Labels” section on the right-hand side of the page. Martha Pearl passed away last January and my, oh my how I wish I had met that woman! She liked to give everyone grief in the kitchen and I have no doubt that Craig and Pierre caught an earful from her on more than one occasion!

To listen to The Splendid Table discussion about Craig click: http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/listings/101002/

French Pot Roast with Red-Wine Sauce – 6 to 10 servings
1 5-6 pound round beef roast
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 ¼ cups chopped onion; use 1 ½ cups to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
2 ¼ cups chopped carrots; use 1 ½ cups to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
1 ½ cups chopped celery; use 1 cup to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
2 cups chopped leeks, optional (I like leeks so used them in the marinade)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 sprigs parsley
1 teaspoon each of leaf sage, dried rosemary, marjoram, and coriander seeds (Note: you will need to make a cheesecloth bag of these spices)
4 to 5 cups dry red wine (or whatever is necessary to cover the roast)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
¾ cup diced salt pork or 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup flour
2 cups beef broth

Place the beef in a mixing bowl.

Combine the vinegar, 1 ½ cups each chopped onion and carrots, 1 cup of celery, all the leeks (2 cups), garlic and parsley in a saucepan. Tie the sage, rosemary, marjoram, and coriander seeds in a cheesecloth bag and add the bag. Bring to the boil, stirring.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the meat and add enough wine to barely cover the meat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cover closely and refrigerate overnight or longer, up to 3 days.

….24 hours later, after having poured your own glass of wine….

Remove the meat and pat it dry. Strain and reserve 3 cups of the liquid. Discard the remaining liquid and vegetables.

Heat the pork (or just the oil) in a heavy Dutch oven or casserole and cook, stirring, until it is rendered of fat. Scoop out and discard the solids.

Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper. Add it to the Dutch oven or casserole and brown well on all sides. Transfer the meat to a warm place.

Add the remaining ¾ cup each of chopped onion and carrots and remaining ½ cup of celery. Cook, stirring, until onion is wilted. Sprinkle with the four and stir to blend thoroughly. Add the reserved marinade and beef broth, stirring with a wire whisk. When the mixture is thickened, add the meat. Cover closely and cook over low heat about 3 hours or until the roast is thoroughly tender.

Remove the meat and keep it warm. Cook the sauce down to the desired consistency. Slice the meat and serve with the sauce and with potatoes Chateau Chinon.

"My Mother's Southern Desserts" by James Villas and Martha Pearl Villas - Snowflake Coconut Cake with Seven-Minute Frosting

From the “vault”

My Mother’s Southern Desserts by James Villas with Martha Pearl Villas (authors of My Mother’s Southern Kitchen)
Published by: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
ISBN: 0688156959
© 1998

Recipe: Snowflake Coconut Cake with Seven-Minute Frosting – p. 106-07


My girlfriend, Mar, sent me an email today just cracking up over my rather lengthy story about how I decided to make Scenic Salisbury Steak from a Route 66 cookbook. Little did she know I had another one of those connect-the-dots moments this past weekend. It goes like this:

My husband and I took a road trip to Kansas City (where, according to the musical, Oklahoma, “everything’s up to date.” My husband sadly did not get that connection), driving south through Minnesota, into Iowa, and then into Missouri.

Now, I do not have any cookbooks as of yet on Kansas City Barbeque (likely because I’m thinking an itty bitty gas grill isn’t going to cut it with KC pit masters, although I could be wrong) and until Tuesday of this week, I didn’t have any cookbooks from Iowa (a friend passed on most of her mom’s collection to me). And so cooking a “memorial” recipe from those places was out at least for the time being.

So instead, I’m giving you a recipe from North Carolina. Why? Well, stay with me on this: just outside Des Moines, we stopped at a Popeye’s fast food place and I ordered the chicken tenders with a side of rice and beans. I’d never been to a Popeye’s but had heard the rice and beans were good. I should have stuck with that. Instead, I ate the gut-bomb chicken tenders and the gut-bomb biscuit (or something resembling a biscuit) and lived to regret it.

So I started thinking about true southern fried chicken, which I’ve maybe had once in my life, and then I started thinking about all the southern cookbooks on my shelf at home which led me to think about two of my favorite cookbook authors, James Villas and his mother, Martha Pearl Villas, and then I thought about the hilarious description he wrote in one of their joint cookbooks, My Mother’s Southern Kitchen, about how to make a proper southern biscuit (let's just say Mother knows best) and from there I totally segued into thinking about this fabulous coconut cake I made for my 10th wedding anniversary party that I found in the cookbook I've featured here, My Mother’s Southern Desserts and that’s how that recipe came to be presented to you today! (That wasn’t so bad, was it? You try sitting in a car for 4 hours after eating a totally depressing “southern” meal and tell me your mind wouldn’t go down the same culinary highway that mine did!)

This cake is beyond delicious. It was the hit of the anniversary party (we had desserts, cordials and other after dinner drinks). I also made a couple other recipes from this book for the party, all good. (“Daddy’s Chocolate-Almond Charlotte Rousse” and “Emergency Lemon Buttermilk Wedding Cake”) But this one stood out mainly because of the note included with the recipe:
“Just the mention of ordinary coconut cakes made with canned flaked coconut and frosted with a heavy, overly sweet, innocuous white icing makes Mother cringe. ‘They’re dry as a bone, tasteless, just awful,’ she says with a scowl, ‘so if you’re not willing to deal with fresh coconut and produce a nice, light frosting in a double boiler, you’d be better of making another cake.’ And that’s that!”

Well, people, I hate to say but that was almost was “that” and I contemplated making another cake. The thought of working with a fresh coconut was rather intimidating and I thought to myself “Why bother? I don’t need her stinkin’ coconut cake!”

Well, I was wrong. I did need her cake. And so I went to the grocery store, bought a coconut, took it home, “tapped” the eye of the coconut with an ice pick so as to remove the coconut “milk” that is used in the cake, duly baked the coconut as directed, and “shaved” it so as to put fresh coconut on top of the cake. I admit it was a little bit of work but man, oh man, oh man, it was worth it. People still talk about “THAT CAKE” and every single morsel was gone, baby, gone within minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something inhaled so quickly.

So if you make this cake for family and friends, be sure to get your slice while the slicing is still good. And by all means, don’t make Martha Pearl mad by substituting fake coconut for the real thing. Mothers, even if they are not yours, have a way of finding out these things.

Snowflake Coconut Cake with Seven-Minute Frosting – yields one 3-layer 8-inch cake; 10 to 12 servings.

I medium-size coconut
2 ¼ cups granulated sugar
3 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 large egg whites
Seven-Minute frosting

Pierce the eyes of the coconut with an ice pick or small screwdriver, strain the milk into a container, add enough water to measure 1 cup, and pour into a small saucepan. (By the way, coconut milk looks more like white water than regular milk…just so you know). Add ¼ cup of the sugar, bring to boil over moderate heat, stirring, and set aside to cool. Crack the coconut with a hammer and remove the meat from the shell. Trim off the brown skin with a sharp pairing knife and discard, grate the coconut onto a plate and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour three 8-inch round cake pans, tapping out any excess flour, and set aside.

In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder and mix well. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and the remaining 2 cups sugar together with an electric mixer till light and fluffy. Beat the dry mixture alternatively with the milk and vanilla into the creamed mixture till well blended, ending with the dry mixture.

Wash and dry the mixer beaters, then, in another large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff but not dry peaks form. With a rubber spatula, gently fold them into the creamed mixture. Scrape the batter evenly into the prepared pans and bake till a cake tester or straw inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Place a cake layer on a cake plate, drizzle about one quarter of the coconut mixture over the top, spread about ¾ cup of the frosting over the top, and sprinkle about one quarter of the grated coconut over the frosting. Repeat with the second layer, then top with the third and spread the remaining frosting over the top and around the sides of the cake and press the remaining grated coconut into the top and sides. Drizzle the remaining coconut milk over the top, cover the cake with plastic wrap and chill for at least 24 hours before serving.

Notes from Martha Pearl regarding the cake that were listed elsewhere in the book:

Coconut: To remove fresh coconut meat easily from the shell after draining the milk (using an ice pick or screwdriver), preheat the oven to 400F and bake the shell for about 15 minutes. While it is still hot, split the shell with a hammer. The meat should come out easily and cleanly, but if it doesn’t, pry it from the shell with a small, heavy knife and remove any brown skin with a vegetable peeler.

Cake flour: Cake flour gives cakes such as angel food a lighter texture than all-purpose flour, but if a recipe calls for cake flour and you don’t have any, you can sift and resift all-purpose flour eight to ten times and get the same result. (Ann’s note—and I thought working with fresh coconut was time-consuming!)

Seven Minute Frosting – Yields 3 cups frosting; enough for the top and sides of a 3-layer 9- or 10-inch cake.

5 large egg whites
2 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup water
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In the top of a double boiler, combine the egg whites, sugar and water and beat slowly with an electric mixer until well blended. Over boiling water, beat the mixture briskly till stiff peaks form, about 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the vanilla. Continue beating until the frosting is thick and smooth, then use immediately. (Ann’s note: This will be hard, but try to save some frosting for the cake as it is just bowl-liking good!)