COD WITH CHEESE SAUCE

The cod loins were back at the market this week. My fish lady told me that the loin in the biggest part of a cod filet, and the price reflects that but I bought one anyway. I already had a recipe in mind. This one comes from an Irish cookbook, but it’s very flexible—you can make it with or without mushrooms, or substitute whatever other vegetable you feel like. As for cheese, pick your favorite semi-hard cheese (which is gratable). If the sauce seems too thick, just add a little more milk. And taste as you go—I found that the lemon juice, even in small amounts, made a definite difference in flavor.

Cod with Cheese Sauce

Ingredients:

3/8 cup whole milk

One slice of onion

3 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

3 parsley stalks

1 oz. butter

1/2 pound cod fillet

1 oz. mushrooms (whatever type you prefer, chopped or sliced)

1 scant oz. flour

1 Tblsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper

2 oz. Cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions:

Put the milk in a small saucepan along with the onion slice, peppercorns, bay leaf and parsley stalks. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat and let “infuse.”

In a different saucepan melt the butter, then brush a little of it on an ovenproof pie dish. Cut the cod into strips, then lay the strips in the pie dish and scatter the mushrooms on top.

Add the flour to the remaining butter in the saucepan and whisk to blend. Strain the milk and stir it into the flour-butter mixture until it’s smooth. Bring to a boil and cook until it thickens. Add the salt and pepper, a dash of lemon juice, then 2/3 of the cheese and stir until smooth. When the cheese is melted, pour the sauce over the fish and mushrooms. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Note: you could also make this in individual ramekins (about 1/2 pint each for single servings).

At last! The newest Museum Mystery is coming out today!

 The New York Times bestselling author of Dead End Street returns with Nell Pratt discovering one of Philadelphia’s darker buried secrets . . .

When a summer intern at the Preservation Society discovers an aged document hidden in the binding of an antique book, Society president Nell Pratt is intrigued by the possibilities: is it a valuable historic document or just a useless scrap of paper? When analysis reveals that it’s a hand-drawn map of one of Philadelphia’s oldest neighborhoods, Nell learns that the area is being excavated for a new real estate development and may hold long-buried secrets from the city’s historic heyday.

Determined to get to the bottom of the map’s origin and what it might tell her about the mysterious plot of land, Nell will have to contend with a construction company owner who disappears, a former Society board member who’s harbored a dark secret her entire life, and a remarkable discovery that may have the dead turning over in their graves . . .

You'll never look at Philadelphia in quite the same way

Available in print and e-book formats.

www.sheilaconnolly.com

Pistachio Cake

by Sheila Connolly

For the past few years, at the Malice Domestic conference I’ve shared a room with the delightful author of the Chocoholic Mystery series, JoAnna Carl.  She usually arrives in Bethesda a few days early in order to enjoy the museums and other historic sites of Washington, and I’m happy to tag along, since I’ve never visited many of them, and others only briefly and long ago.

This year we decided to take the tour of Ford’s Theater, which was sad and impressive (if you could see past the crowds made up mainly of school groups—but at least they’re learning something about their history!). We followed that with a brief stop at an extraordinarily elegant chocolate shop CoCo nearby, where we each indulged in a few carefully chosen candies, and then we had lunch at a pleasant restaurant on the corner.

For dessert I ordered their pistachio cake, and it was excellent—nice flavor, and moist. I’m usually not a fan of nut-based desserts, but I enjoyed this one. So I decided to try to recreate it.

Oddly enough, the recipes on the Internet seem to have been shanghaied by a modern version involving a box of cake mix combined with pudding. I’m sure it’s tasty and easy, but I like to make things from scratch (maybe I’m a throwback). Finding a recipe for that was a bit harder, but I located a couple, which I kind of combined for this cake.

A couple of notes: First, I cheated and bought my pistachios already shelled, since this recipe calls for a total of a cup of nut meats.  I confess: now and then I get lazy. Second, the restaurant served their version as small cakes, maybe four inches across. Believe it or not, that’s one size of pan I do not have, although I may have every other size known to humankind. But this works just as well in a baking pan—it’s just not as refined a presentation. It still tastes good!

Pistachio Cake

3/4 cup (4 oz.) natural pistachios, shelled

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

(If you really want this to look green, you can add a few drops of food coloring.)

1 cup pistachios (yes, another batch) for topping

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 13" x 9" metal cake pan, then line the bottom with wax paper. Butter the paper and dust the interior of the pan with flour, knocking out the excess.

Pulse the pistachios in a food processor until finely ground (do not let them turn into a paste!).

Combine the finely-chopped pistachios, flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt and mix.

Combine the milk, sour cream, vanilla and almond extract (and optional food coloring) in a small bowl.

With an electric stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk in batches, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, and mix only until combined.

For the topping, chop the second batch of pistachios in a food processor until the pieces look like large gravel (about 1/8-1/4"). I suspect this works better if you hand chop the nuts, since the food processor gives kind of a random result (but see confession above).

Spread the batter evenly in the cake pan. Sprinkle the chopped pistachios evenly over the top.

Bake in the middle of the oven about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cake and invert it onto the rack. Remove the paper on the bottom and flip the cake onto a serving platter.

Serve warm or at room temperature. If you insist you can dress it up with whipped cream, but it’s very light and moist as is.

Oh, that's right: there's a book coming out in June:

A big-city developer with big bucks, a Revolutionary War monument, and a body floating in a pond--what more do you want? (How about Nell Pratt's relationship with my favorite FBI agent, that's heating up fast?)