Is This the World's Greatest Food City?

Also, my favorite summer recipe. And a nostalgic old cookbook.

Given everything going on right now, it seems like escape is in order. Looking through old travel articles, I found myself thinking about a trip I took to Singapore almost forty years ago.

It was an extraordinary time to be there, a moment of enormous change; the old city was being razed to make way for something clean, modern and super-sanitary. Wandering through the old, still charming neighborhoods I found myself thinking about how important it is for a city to honor its history.

The food, of course, was extraordinary. It truly is one of the greatest places to eat in the world.

And speaking of great… If you haven’t watched The Bear on Hulu, don’t miss it. The show is moving, painful, exhilarating…. I think it’s the best restaurant show ever aired on tv.

It’s sour cherry season! It doesn’t last long and this time of year I find myself spending a fair amount of time pitting cherries and freezing them for later. There’s nothing quite so wonderful as tasting summer when the snow is falling.

There is a simple trick to pitting cherries. And here it is.

Open a paper clip one fold and use it to flip out the pits. Pitted cherries freeze well; I try to freeze enough to last at least until Christmas. Do not defrost before using.

In the heat of summer this dough can be difficult dough to work with. But unlike regular pie dough, it’s a cookie-like pastry that’s very forgiving and refuses to get tough, no matter how much you handle it. If it becomes too soft simply put it back in the refrigerator for five minutes to let it cool off. It will become much more accommodating.

Sour Cherry Crostata

Crust
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
pinch salt
grated rind of one lemon

Mix the butter with the sugar in a stand mixer until fluffy. 

Break the egg into a small dish; reserve a bit to wash the pastry later, and add the rest of the egg to the butter. Add the vanilla.

Grate the lemon rind into the flour. Add a pinch of salt and slowly add to the butter/egg mixture until it just comes together. Divide into two disks, wrap in wax paper, and put in the refrigerator to chill for half an hour while you make the filling.

Sour Cherry Filling
2 pints fresh sour cherries.
4 tablespoons butter.
1/2 cup sugar
juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Remove the pits from the sour cherries; you should have 4 cups once the pits are gone.

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the cherries, sugar and lemon juice and stir gently, just until the liquids come to a boil. Don’t cook them too long or the cherries will start to fall apart.

Make a slurry by mixing the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of cold water and stir it into the boiling cherries. Cook for about two minutes, stirring, just until the mixture becomes clear and thick. Cool.

Preheat the oven to 375 and put a baking sheet on the middle shelf.

Remove the pastry disks from the refrigerator.  Roll out the first disk between two sheets of plastic wrap, to a round about twelve inches in diameter.  This is the tricky part: invert it into a 9 inch fluted tart pan, preferably one with high sides.  It will probably tear; don’t worry, just patch it all up and put it back into the refrigerator.

Roll out the second disk in the same manner, put it onto a baking sheet (still on the plastic wrap), remove the top sheet of plastic and cut this into 8 or 10 strips, about an inch wide.  Put the baking sheet into the refrigerator to chill for a few minutes.

Remove the tart shell and the strips from the refrigerator. Pour the cherry filling into the tart shell. Now make a lattice of the strips on the top, criss-crossing them diagonally.  Don’t worry if they’re not perfect; no matter what you do, the tart’s going to look lovely when it emerges from the oven.  Brush the strips with the remaining beaten egg, sprinkle with a bit of sugar and put into the oven on the baking sheet.  (You need the sheet to keep cherry juices from spilling onto the oven floor.)  Bake for about 45 minutes, until golden.

Cool for an hour, on a rack, before removing the side of the tart pan.

Since we seem to be in nostalgia mode, here’s a menu from one of my favorite old cookbooks, Ford Treasury of Famous Recipes from Famous Eating Places, a delightful series of illustrated books published in the fifties. There are, for some reason, multiple recipes for oyster stew from various parts of the country. Most involve a lot of cream, but this one, from one of my family’s favorite restaurants (I spent a lot of time there as a child), is a little less rich.