AUTHOR RECIPES

Lisa See's Won Tons

Margaret Sartor's Strawberry 7Up Pie

Margaret Sartor's Spiced Tea

Alison Larkin's Perfect Pot of Tea

Alison Larkin's Dad's Orange Marmalade

Min Jin Lee's
Ella's Cherry Scones

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 FEATURED AUTHOR RECIPES

Min Jin Lee's
Ella's Cherry Scones

Note: Ms. Lee is a member of bookclubcookbook.com's Invite an Author program and is available to speak with your book club.

Casey Han, the main character of Free Food for Millionaires is not much of a cook, but her friend Ella Shim loves to cook, read cookbooks and to eat pastries and ice cream when things are not easy. When life troubles Ella, she eats baked goods (homemade or store bought), and in her freezer, there are always stocked items to warm for her guests. Ella, whose mother died when she was an infant, has learned to cook and to nourish herself and others literally with food. She is a privileged ingenue who learns a great deal about life through a tough marriage and divorce.

I like Ella very much. She is a classic good girl, and through all of life’s unfairness, she fights to be an ethical person. I think that is not easy to do. On the day Casey learns that her ex-fiance is going to marry another woman, Ella has fortuitously baked her scones. (Book II, Chapter 12, p. 309).

As for me, when life gets tricky, I turn to the kitchen. I subscribe to Saveur, Bon Appetit, Cook’s Illustrated, and Gourmet. I tear out tempting pages and file them into clear folders, and I would hazard a guess that I make about 1 out of 40 to 50 recipes. The problem is that once I like a recipe, I make it again and again—tricking out the revisions with new ingredients. Unlike writing fiction that for me takes a very long time, I love the process of starting and finishing a project within an afternoon. Also, everyone is delighted to get a bowl of chicken and rice soup or a slice of chocolate cake. In my small kitchen, everyone is happy. Hey, me, too.

This recipe is adapted from The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. It was a cookbook given to me by my college roommate Germaine Netzband twenty years ago on my 19th birthday. I don’t think I have seen her in as much time, but I still think of her fondly whenever I use this book. This is neither a sweet scone recipe nor a savory one. However, I have baked these traditional scones for English friends who have approved heartily. They usually prefer currants, and I like the dried cherries or dried apricots, too. If you can find some clotted cream, do treat yourself. I am admittedly an occasional glutton for such luxuries.So, now, I am going to imagine you and your friends tucking into piles of hearty curried chicken sandwiches cut into triangles, warm scones slathered with clotted cream and spoonfuls of jam, and of course, wedges of iced cake to finish. There isn’t much in the world preferable to a nourishing tea with friends and books. I hope your large plate is brimming, well balanced on your knee, and your napkin handy. I am raising my tea mug to you, and I say cheers. Have a second helping of clotted cream for me.

Ella’s Cherry Scones

Note: You can serve the scones warm with butter, clotted cream, preserves, honey, cheeses, and cups of delicious black tea with milk. They also serve well cold, and I freeze any leftovers (wrapping each one individually, and then pop them in the microwave for a few seconds whenever I can.)

1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup dried cherries (or currants, chopped dried apricots, raisins, or dried blueberries)

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a large cookie sheet. In a large mixing bowl, beat the buttermilk, egg, and sugar. Sift 3 cups of flour together with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add about 2/3 of the flour mixture to the buttermilk and stir well. Gradually add the melted butter, incorporating it thoroughly into the mixture. Stir in the remaining flour mixture and the dried cherries. A little more flour may be necessary to form stiff dough.

2. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured board and knead for several minutes. Separate dough into 3 equal parts. Shape each part into a circle, approximately 1 inch thick and 4 to 5 inches across. Cut the circles into quarters with a sharp knife, and arrange dough wedges on the cookie sheet.

3.   Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Please watch this carefully. Sometimes, I pull them out after 18-19 minutes depending on the oven.

Yield:  12 scones

Alison Larkin's
Perfect Pot of Tea and Orange Marmalade

Note: Ms. Larkin is a member of bookclubcookbook.com's Invite an Author program and is available to speak with your book club.

Like my heroine, Pippa Dunn, I have found home made marmalade on toast and a cup of tea to be the perfect repast when I am wide awake in the middle of the English night after a long flight from America. Here’s a passage taken from Chapter 45 of The English American, when my heroine Pippa leaves the chaos of her life in New York and comes home to visit her parents for a week. Although for Pippa, everything has changed, for her English parents, who live in a house built in 1470 near the town of Peaseminster, life goes on much as before.

Thanks to jet lag, I’m awake at four o’clock in the morning, so I go downstairs to make myself some more toast and a cup of tea. Boris is lying in his dog basket under the kitchen table, but gets up, tail beating against the kitchen floor as I feed him some of my toast and Dad’s homemade marmalade.

The pink and yellow pottery mugs from Greece are still hanging from the hooks under the kitchen cabinet next to the window. The tartan drying-up cloth is still folded over the rail by the sink. The white electric kettle is still in the same place, next to the tin of Earl Grey tea. The yellow ceramic pot with SUGAR written on it is still next to the slightly larger pot with FLOUR written on it in the same lettering.

Mum’s new Too Hot to Handel oven gloves are hanging where her blue and white checked ones used to hang, on the hook next to the oven. The plastic rotary in the cupboard is still home to the salt and pepper holders, the Ryvita, the marmalade, the honey, and probably the same jar of Marmite I ate from before I went to America. Yes. Everything is still here. Reassured, I kiss Boris good night and head back upstairs to my room.

You can find clear instructions on how not to make a cup of tea on page 94 of The English American:

Billie makes us all a cup of tea. The American way. Which means she sticks three coffee mugs half full of water in the microwave for thirty seconds. Then she dunks the same Lipton tea bag in all three mugs until a nasty brown swirl appears. Then she adds a squidge of lemon and tells us to “come and get it."

You can find instructions on how to make a cup of tea on page 95 of The English American – or better still, you can use this recipe from The Ritz Hotel in London. I would be thrilled to hear from book club members who find themselves chatting about my book over a pot tea, served with marmalade on toast!!

A Perfect Pot of Tea

This recipe was inspired by Helen Simpson’s recipe for tea in the The London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea (William Morrow, 1986). 

Put the kettle on and, just before it comes to the boil, pour a generous dash of the hot water into your teapot (glazed china or earthenware ideally), swirling it round and round inside the pot before pouring it away. (Warming the pot is not a meaningless ritual, but ensures that the water stays at boiling point when it hits the tea, encouraging the proper opening of the leaves.)

Dole out one heaped teaspoon of tea leaves – Earl Grey, Lapsang, Assam, Ceylon, Jasmine or Darjeeling – one for each person and one for the pot, straight into the warmed teapot. The kettle will have reached a galloping boil by this time, so pour the water over the tea. Take care that the water is not long boiling; over boiled water results in a bitter muddy brew of tea.

Allow the tea to stand and brew for anything from three to six minutes.

Give the tea a good stir and pour it, using a strainer to catch leaves. If you take your tea with milk, you should add it to the cup, cold and fresh, before pouring the tea.

My Dad’s Orange Marmalade

Toast is toast is toast. Although I prefer thin toast. And if you’re making toast and marmalade, do be sure to put a little butter or margarine on first. Here’s my Dad’s recipe for homemade marmalade.

2 navel oranges
2 cups fresh orange juice (from about 2 pounds oranges)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
7 1/2 cups sugar

1. Rinse oranges under hot water. Quarter lengthwise, and slice crosswise as thinly as possible.
2. Place orange slices, orange juice, lemon juice and 6 cups of water in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until orange peels are translucent and tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
3. Add sugar and return to a boil, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Continue cooking, skimming foam off the surface and stirring frequently for approximately half an hour.
4. Place a little bit of marmalade onto a chilled plate. Allow to cool. If the marmalade wrinkles when you press the mixture, it has set. If it’s still runny, continue cooking until mixture is set. Allow to cool and put in jars marked "marmalade."

Margaret Sartor's
Strawberry 7Up Pie and Spiced Tea

Note: Ms. Sartor is a member of bookclubcookbook.com's Invite an Author program and is available to speak with your book club.

My mother wasn’t to excited by cooking when I was growing up. Or, to put it more accurately, she never relished hours in the kitchen because there was always plenty else to do. As an artist and mother of five, Mama was a whiz of creativity and endearing distraction at almost everything she did, from cooking to housecleaning to painting portraits of local preachers and bank presidents. My sisters, brother and I share the fond memory of an oft-repeated scene: my mother jumping up from her chair in panic at the first whiff of burning breakfast toast or dinner rolls and my father responding without a touch of irony: “It’s fine, Bobbie Sue. I like it better that way.”

Like most people in Louisiana, my family loved to eat. My grandmother Momma Doll made mouth-watering chicken dumplings from scratch and my sister Stella baked bread. Because my father was much beloved physician, folks were always bringing over paper sacks full of fresh peas and beans. I regularly ate homemade crabapple jelly and fig preserves, crawfish, meat pie, biscuits and gumbo. When the pantry ran low, Mama relied on Hamburger Helper, which she considered a truly nifty invention -- not unlike iron-on patches or the vacuum cleaner -- for rescuing busy homemakers.

As a teenager in the 1970s, I thought “homemade” instant food far more fun than rolling dumpling dough and experimented with the likes of cool whip and instant Tang. During the hot Louisiana summers, a 7Up pie was a delight on a par with “coke floats.” (If you don’t know that one, it’s simple. Pour cold coca-cola into a large glass filled with vanilla ice cream. Heaven.) I’m pretty sure that hot spiced tea remains a standard comfort food for winter days in the deep South. My friends and I made it in big batches. We poured it into Mason jars and tied ribbons around the lids. With hand-decorated labels, these made great holiday gifts. They still do.

Like my diaries, these recipes contain memories. I’ve pulled them from the attic detritus of my past and share them here because they evoke the salad days of my youth -- some of the tastiest ones.

Strawberry 7Up Pie

Adapted from The Cotton Country Collection, published by the Monroe, Louisiana Junior Charity League (1972)

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
6 ounces lemon-lime flavored soda, such as 7Up
A few dashes red food coloring, or enough to turn syrup shade of red
1 20-ounce package frozen strawberries, thawed and drained, or 3 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 9-inch piecrust, baked
Whipped cream or nondairy whipped topping, such as Cool Whip 

1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, lemon-lime flavored soda, and food coloring. Simmer over medium heat until mixture thickens, approximately ten minutes. Allow to cool.
   
2. Add strawberries, stir to coat, and pour mixture into baked pie shell. Top with nondairy whipped topping, if using, and chill well for several hours before serving.  If using whipped cream, first chill the filled pie shell for several hours, then top with whipped cream before serving.

Yield:  1 9-inch pie, 6 to 8 servings

 Spiced Tea

This tea may also be served cold.

1/2 cup sweetened iced tea mix powder
1/2 cup orange-flavored drink mix powder, such as Tang
1/2 cup sweetened lemonade-flavored drink mix powder
1/2 cup sugar (more or less depending on your sweet tooth)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.  For each serving, place 2 to 3 rounded teaspoons of the mixture into a mug and add very hot water.  Stir until mixture dissolves.  

Yield:  Approximately 25 servings

Lisa See's Won Tons

Food and the Chinese language are the two most important things in Chinese culture and to the Chinese people, so it's no wonder that food plays an important role in all my books. In Peony in Love, food has a greater significance than usual. I don't want to give anything away, but it has to do with the nature of the lovesick maidens and what they were doing (or not doing) in life, as well as the ravenous desires of hungry ghosts.

There aren’t any won tons in Peony in Love, but there are plenty of other types of dumplings. You can make the won tons before the book group meeting or you can make rolling them and cooking them an activity to do together.

We’ve always made won tons in my family. On Thanksgiving in my family,everyone rolls their own won tons. We have a lot of fun, everyone gets their fingers messy, and we come up with some odd shapes. Not to worry though. As long as the won ton is properly sealed, it will cook up just fine.

You can add anything you want to the filling—chopped Chinese mushrooms or garlic, for example—but these are my favorite ingredients. I love fresh ginger and the crunch of the water chestnuts.

Also, if you have extra won tons, you can always make won ton soup. For won ton soup, boil the won tons for a couple of minutes to wash away the flour, drain, and then add them to your soup just before serving.

Lisa See's Won Tons

Notes:

The number of won ton wrappers varies from package to package, but usually they have between 36 and 60 wrappers. I’ve included an extra package of wrappers in this recipe because a lot depends on how plump you make your won tons.

You can serve won tons hot or at room temperature. Won tons also travel well as long as you don't put them in a sealed container. I put them loose in a brown paper grocery bag lined on the bottom with a few paper towels. This helps to soak up any extra oil, keeps the won tons from getting soggy, and you don't have to wash your traveling container!

For an additional dipping option, you can serve ready-made sweet and sour sauce.

For the won tons:

1/2 pound lean ground pork
1/2 pound uncooked shrimp, peeled, deveined and minced
1 (8-ounce) can water chestnuts, minced
3 scallions, minced
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 packages won ton skins (set aside one wrapper for testing) (see note)
1 egg, beaten
Peanut or safflower oil for frying

For the dipping sauce:

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
dash of Siracha chili sauce
1 scallion, chopped

1. To make the filling: In a medium bowl, combine pork, shrimp, water chestnuts, scallions, ginger, and soy sauce.
   
2. To assemble the won tons: Place won ton wrapper in front of you so that a corner is facing in your direction. Place about a teaspoon of the filling in that corner. Roll this corner toward the middle. Moisten the side corners with a drop of the egg mixture and fold those two ends together to lock the won ton in place. There should be a single layer of won ton skin that curls out the back, like a jaunty scarf. Make sure the filling is sealed inside or the won tons will fall apart during cooking.
3. At this point you can store the won tons in the refrigerator until cooking. When storing, make sure the won tons don’t touch each other or they’ll stick together.
4. To make the dipping sauce: Combine ingredients in a small bowl.
5. To fry the wontons: Pour 1 to 2 inches of oil into a pot or deep-sided skillet. Heat oil over medium heat. Test the oil temperature by tearing off pieces of one won ton wrapper and dropping them in the oil. The wrapper should turn brown quickly but not get too dark. Fry a few won tons at a time in a single layer until golden and crispy. Make sure they don’t touch each other, and use tongs to flip them. Don’t overcook! Drain on paper towels. Serve with dipping sauce.

Yield: Approximately 48 won tons