Butterfly Buns, Barmbrack and Soda Bread: The Secrets of Irish Baking

Hey Milk Street Radio listeners, we have an interview coming up soon about picky eating, but we also want to hear from your kids and maybe grandkids about their adventures in food. So please record your kids talking about eating new foods. To share your kid's story, please leave us a voicemail at 617-249-3167, 617-249-3167, or send a voice memo to radio tips at 177milkstreet.com. This is Mill Street Radio from PRX. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Today, we're sitting down with Irish baker Cherie Denham. Growing up in Northern Ireland, gave Cherie a first-hand education in Irish cooking, baking, and of course, hospitality. You never walk into a house in Ireland without being offered a cup of tea and something nice to eight. My daddy always used to say, a cup of tea's awful wet without anything else, isn't it? That's coming up later on the show. First, we're getting an insider's look at food advertising. The television show Mad Men gave us fictional campaigns for brands like Popsicle, Otz Potato Chips and Heinz. It's clean, it's simple, and it's tantalizingly incomplete. What's missing? One thing. Pass the Heinz. You mean the Heinz ketchup? It's Heinz. It only means one thing. To find out the real stories behind some of the most and least successful food ads, I'm joined now by a Madison Avenue veteran, Jeff Swiston. Jeff, welcome back to Milk Street. What a pleasure. It's great to be back. Looking forward to this. So before we get into examples, tell me a little bit about your experiences in the advertising business. and on Madison Avenue. Yeah. So, you know, through my advertising and branding work, I worked with a branding agency and then went to DDB, one of the larger ad agencies. And through my career, I've had the pleasure of working on McDonald's and finding out how difficult it is for these global restaurant, quick service, grocery brands to have a consistent message around the world. When I joined DDB, I thought we did all the McDonald's advertising all around the world. Well, that wasn't true. There's not one ad agency that could service McDonald's globally. So in addition to the challenge of running a huge global business, McDonald's would have to manage like over 400 agencies around the world to try to have consistent messaging campaigns. So now we'll start at the beginning. So Unita, 1896. This is really interesting. You said they had a teaser campaign where the only thing you saw on the billboard or in the magazine or whatever was the word Unita, which sounds either prescient about the future of advertising or they didn't know what else to do. I don't know which it was. You know, you might have just defined advertising and marketing that half the time it's science and half the time it's lucky art. But, you know, this came out from what is now Nabisco, the National Biscuit Company. It was the first campaign ever to spend a million dollars. Back then, people would go into the general store and communally reach into a cracker barrel. And Unita came out with its packaging, with its brand name, and with this national campaign that was never seen before. And it had results. Unita, you need a what? You need a biscuit. Of course, you need a biscuit. And within a couple of years, Americans were buying an astonishing 10 million packages every month, more than 20 times the combined sales of all other packaged crackers. So let's talk about some other big successes that I remember because I'm old enough, but Life Cereal, you know, the Mikey. Let's see if Mikey wants to eat it. Just want to explain that commercial for those, the younger members of our listening audience. Yeah, so I remember it. Young Mikey, the parents weren't shown in the ad. That was very unconventional for the times. And here it showed two pestering older brothers getting young Mikey to try life, which had been sold to them through their mother as being healthy. And, of course, they thought healthy just meant not fun, not sugary. But Mikey tucks into it and enjoys it. And, you know, they exclaim, wow, Mikey likes it. He doesn't like anything. He likes it. Hey, Mikey! When you bring life home, don't tell the kids it's one of those nutritional cereals you've been trying to get them to eat. You're the only one who has to know. Well, it worked for, I guess, my parents because I ate life cereal every morning for years. And did you know this is incredible, Chris? They revitalized it this year. They actually brought in a new Mikey and they changed the tonality of it to reflect the more chaotic, not leave it to beaver look of a house, but, you know, household where it's crazy in the morning. But Mikey's enjoying his life cereal. So this thing has legs. It's, you know, now going on 50 years. He likes it. Hey, Mikey. I really love my life. Yeah, I really love my life. The Coke, you know, I'd like to buy a world of Coke and keep it company, but people singing on the hill. I'm so fascinated by advertising because you're trying to sell a soft drink and you have 50 people singing a song on a hill. And it's brilliant, but it's, you know, if you went into a meeting and said, I got this great idea for a Coke ad, they might think you're crazy. So how did it come about and why do you think it works so well? This one is so funny because we would joke when I worked on Madison Avenue that half the ideas came over a two or three martini lunch and were jotted down on a cocktail napkin. This wasn't a three martini lunch. It was a gentleman from McCann Erickson, now called McCann, one of the bigger agencies. He was flying to England and there was bad weather and the plane got rerouted and everyone was unhappy on the plane. And the airline brought out a free Coke to everyone and everyone calmed down and began talking to each other. And he sort of noticed the strangers talking to strangers and saw that this product actually brought people together. And that's where it resulted from. And it could almost be a trivia question for your audience, but this was filmed in Italy, actually. Yeah, that also surprised me. Yeah, we make the natural assumption that they're in the hills of California near L.A. Right, right. And I often think about, you know, them costuming and they were hippie-ish, but they were clean cut at the same time. And I thought Coke and McCann Erickson really trod that line very well. I like to teach the world to sing with me. Perfect harmony. Perfect harmony. I like to buy the world. I hope I keep it company. Now, this one really was a great example of one of the most iconic ads that did a really lousy job because you wouldn't remember, and I didn't remember, what they were selling. The spicy meatball. That's the spicy meatball. So this is my old agency, Doyle Dane Burnback, obviously many decades before I joined it. It's a commercial within a commercial. So what you're seeing is a commercial being filmed for a pasta sauce. And the actor can't get his line right. Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball. And the poor actor within this commercial, within the commercial, eats so many meatballs that he gets indigestion. and that's why it's an Alka-Seltzer ad. But the pasta sauce was referenced so many times and Alka-Seltzer came up once at the end. So you know what it ended up doing? Selling no more Alka-Seltzer, but pasta sauce flew off the shelves as a result. So it's totally funny. Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball. Cut. What was the matter with that? The accent. Meesey, meesey, ballsy, ballsy. Cut. Take 59. and action. Sometimes you eat more than you should. And when it's spicy besides, mama mia, do you need Alka-Seltzer? So we have these examples, these classic ads, many of which worked really well, like Coke, some not so good like Alka-Seltzer. So that's the world of Madison Avenue. What have people learned in the last 10 years? Like what things have stopped working, what new things are working. Is the creative really similar than it was 30, 40 years ago, or has that also changed? What's changed is brevity. So it's a lot harder to convey a creative idea or get a creative idea across in a compelling way that holds people's attention. And also marketers and brands are working on shorter schedules. The successful ones we've been talking about from the 70s back to the 50s, those companies were planning on three-year cycles. Now, you know, companies are planning on three-day cycles. And I think we're in an interesting period right now, but I think we're going to find a compromise in the next five to 10 years where longer term brand building is going to come back because, you know, we can speak about a Coca-Cola and generally anyone can, you know, articulate what the brand's all about, about freshness, fun, happiness. But the one thing that's really interesting about all sorts of the food category, the food industry, is it plays upon comfort. And it also evokes memories. And I see that being a benefit and a bit of a too much of a guardrail right now for the food industry where everything is built upon nostalgia like we were talking about with Mikey and Life Cereal Well just today press release came out from Oscar Mayer where they are rebooting the old Bologna or Bologna jingle after 50 years. And so, you know, within months of each other, you got Mikey and Life Cereal and the Oscar Mayer iconic song coming back. And I think that the chief marketing officers and the ad agencies servicing food brands large and small are struggling to remain relevant and are tapping these old-time emotional roots, which are great, but there's only so much longevity, right, before you need something fresh. Some things change and some things never change. Jeff, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. It's been a pleasure for me too, Chris. Great to be back. That was branding expert Jeff Swiston. He's also the author of TV Dinners Unboxed, The Hot History of Frozen Meals. Now it's time to answer your cooking questions with my co-host, Sarah Moulton. Sarah is, of course, the star of Sarah's Weeknight Meals on public television, also author of Home Cooking 101. So, Chris, what is your go-to dinner in this situation? Your wife and kids are out. You only have like an hour. You've got to rush off and do something yourself. So you're not going to cook yourself a meal. Some people, like I know this chef who would come home from work every night and have a bowl of cereal and watch The Honeymooners. And he was in heaven. His name is Girish. Alice, right to the moon. Right. His name is Guy Rouge. He's French, too, so it's extra funny. What would yours? I'll tell you mine after you tell me yours. The things I like when I'm not cooking, any kind of scrambled eggs or omelet or a quick frittata, any of those things are easy to throw together. I often eat oatmeal, like steel-cut oatmeal. Flanahan's steel-cut oatmeal is fabulous. It comes in a can. It comes in a can? Oh, they all come in a can. And then it's about 20 minutes. You can actually... 20 minutes? Yeah, you can actually do it the night before, so that's something you can keep around. And I do, I often make rice. I make rice like three times a week. And I just find what's in the fridge and I, you know, leftover meat or something. I top rice a lot as my go-to dinner. Well, you know, it's funny because I thought of this question because last week my nephew was in a concert. He's in a choral group and it was absolutely beautiful. At any rate, I had to go to that. The husband was out. I only had about a half an hour to eat something for dinner. And I was so excited because I decided I can have cheese and crackers for dinner. And wine. Yeah, of course. Let's not forget the wine. And, you know, I had some really nice cheddar, which isn't fancy or anything. But I was just like, wow, good crackers, good cheese. I was just happy. There's nothing better sometimes if you skip dinner than you can have lots of cheese and crackers. Right. And that's actually. That's exactly what I thought. But as a matter of fact, this is within the calorie range. It should have been anyway. Because otherwise you have like two pieces of cheese and you go like, I shouldn't have any more. Yeah, I know. And it's so sad. That's a good one. Yeah, there you go. Cheese and crackers. Okay, moving on. Let's take a call. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Hi, this is Tamara from Adairsville, Georgia. Hi, Tamara. How can we help you? My family and I have a small homestead and we raise our own jacks and chickens. And occasionally we wind up having too many roosters, and so we need to call the flock. And because they are free range, they tend to be tough and dry when cooked. And I was wondering if you had suggestions for cooking them. Well, I think definitely braising is the way to go. There is a Greek dish, which is rooster with pasta and tomato sauce, which has a fair amount of olive oil in it. I think about the old French days when they would lard a roast that was lean with, you know, fat. But you could also add some bacon, which would be really nice, and bacon fat. So that's what I would do is, you know, cook it low and slow. I would definitely, I think a tomato base is a good thing and make sure there's a fair amount of fat in there. Chris? Coccovin was a rooster, and roosters usually were three, four, five years old before they were slaughtered. And so the meat was older. You know, a chicken now is, what, six or eight weeks old, something? I mean, it's very young. I have larded, actually, venison. And I found larding, you know, I did it with a larding needle and everything else. It helps a little, but not really. I totally agree with Sarah that low and slow, like a braise of some kind, that's how I would cook, for example, you know, legs of rabbit or something, right? A wild game or venison, low and slow. And that'll work well. Actually, if you go dig up like a Julia Chancocovain recipe, it's probably six pages. Master in the Art. Probably 12. But, you know, it would be fun because that was designed for tough chicken, designed for roosters. So I would try that, actually. I think that's the ideal recipe for this. Yeah, that also has red wine in it and has lardons, which is bacon and pearl onions and mushrooms. When you call the herd, how old are the roosters? They can be anywhere between six months to a year, year and a half. Yeah, so they're older. So, yeah, some of them do tend to be older. Would you recommend any kind of, like, pressure cooking or anything like that? Or brining? No, I would do one thing, though. Cook the breast separately from the legs, which are going to be much tougher. Okay, great. Those are some great suggestions. I remember years ago, I've mentioned this before, but a friend of mine across the valley came to Thanksgiving and brought her home-raised turkey. And the leg was so big, it wouldn't fit in the oven. I had a chainsawed off. And the breasts were tiny. So my guess is the breast meat's going to be very small and the leg's going to be really big. So it's going to be mostly leg. Yeah, but do let us know what you do. We want to know. Okay. Thanks for calling. I will. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. Bye-bye. Bye. This is Mill Street Radio. If dinner's got you down, call us, 855-426. 855-426-9843. That's 855-426-9843. Or just email us at questions at MilkStreetRadio.com. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? This is Don calling from Toledo, Ohio. How can we help you? I know that in many recipe books and recipes I've seen when you're making things like pudding and custards and the like, that they often recommend at the end that you lay a piece of plastic on the surface to keep the skin from forming. And I am one who tries to avoid plastic as much as possible. So I'm wondering if you can recommend an alternative to that. Number one, I'm with you. I don't like putting plastic or plastic wrap on hot fatty foods. Correct. I've read that that's not a good idea. Now, maybe there are certain plastic wraps where this is not a problem, but I just don't do it. Number two, as a kid, I love the skin on custards and puddings. So I view that as a positive, not negative. I guess if you really objected to it, you could use parchment paper. Maybe you spray it or don't. Or there's also parchment paper, sort of nonstick parchment paper you could use. Or you could use wax paper, I guess. I would not use plastic wrap. What I actually would do is nothing. Right, Sarah? Nothing. Well, because you like the skin. And there are quite a few people who do like the skin, although it is a bit chewy. Multitextural. Yes, there you go. But I wonder if, I mean, what happens is as soon as the surface of the pudding is exposed to the air, it starts to form that skin. So you need to sort of keep the air from the pudding. I wonder if perhaps this wouldn't last very long if you put a wet paper towel right on top of the surface. Okay. So there's nothing intrinsic to the plastic necessarily. It doesn't have to be plastic, I guess, is what you're saying. No, it's the air. It's just like now when I cut an avocado, I put it cut side down on a plate because then there's no air getting to the avocado. Put it in a small container with a slice of apple. Or a slice of onion. Yes, this all works. Air is the monster here. Can I just comment that given the infinite and totally confusing nature of the universe, that it's so wonderful as human beings, we can argue about skin on pudding. It just makes you feel good about our ability to ignore the big issues of the day. Right. That's why people find food so comforting. I know. It's like, forget about black holes. In your opinion, it's not even that essential at all, I guess is what I'm hearing. Well, it's whatever you want. I mean, it's the great thing about food. It doesn't matter what I think. And some people do like that skin. But there is parchment paper that is actually sort of a nonstick parchment paper you can buy. I think wax paper would probably be fine. Yeah, I do too. And you don't think the wax would melt into the... I don't think so. Let it cool just a bit, maybe. I mean, wax paper used to be used all the time. I know. The trouble was when you did put it in the oven, it would start to smoke. So that was a problem. Well, you weren't supposed to put it in the oven. I know. I know. Don, I think we're heading towards the infinite universe here. Don, thank you. Yes. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. You're listening to Milk Street Radio. Coming up, the definitive guide to Irish baking. Hey there. My name is Jody Avergan. Have you noticed the present day? It feels pretty rocky. Well, I think history can help. What's more, this little country of ours, the United States, it's turning 250 soon. So how did we get here? On this day, historians Nicole Hammer and Kelly Carter Jackson and I sit down to look at stories from the past, silly surprising deeply relevant that feel like they have something to teach us about today This day three times a week you can find it wherever you listening right now This is Milk Street Radio. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Now it's my interview with Cherie Denham. Cherie is a baker, preserver, and author of the new cookbook, The Irish Bakery. Cherie, welcome to Milk Street. Thanks very much. Thank you for having me. Let's start with history. So when you talk about the baking of Ireland, was this entirely separate from any other influence up until the present day? Or at some point did the Irish traditions get mixed with other traditions? In other words, is there pure Irish baking that's totally separate from like England or Britain, for example? I think so, Chris. Yeah, I think that from years ago, it was always a situation where these women, because it was women back in the day, it was people of my grandmother's era, my great aunts. and they seemed to bake for every day. They never really bought breads or anything. And also these breads were always made with bicarbonate of soda rather than yeast. They were fast breads and they always used to bake for the whole family. Like my grandmother had 13 children and even when they were older, she would bake all day and make sure that they all had bread to take home with them because they'd all come and visit her and they'd all walk away with bags of butter, bread, jam, you know. And I think those baking traditions meant everything to them. It really rooted them as well because they've all brought the food back to basics. You know, there were only about four ingredients in each bread. And I think that's something that we need to really think about, bringing food back to basics. So what about today? Has soda bread remained a really important part of Irish baking or has yeasted bread sort of crept into the scene now? Not really, you know. It's interesting because I put a few yeasted breads on my TikTok, but the ones that really go are the soda breads, like the soda farls and the white soda, the fruit soda, the wheat and bread. because I think, especially for new bread makers, people want to try things. They want it to be quick. Do you know what I mean? Whereas I think a yeasted bread, people are more afraid of yeast. Whereas a soda bread, they've got something like in an hour coming out of the oven and it smells divine. And it's so much better than shop bought. So much better. So I always wondered, because I make a cross on my whole wheat soda bread and you said your great aunt Evie said that it kept the devil out of the home. So now I know why I do it. Yeah, so the cross across the top to keep the devil out and then you have to pierce each quarter to let the fairies out because the fairies might jinx your bread otherwise. I didn't know that. That's important. I've had fairies in my whole week soda bread all the time. That's a problem. I knew there was a problem. So if you're going to bake soda bread at home, Give us like what are a couple other common ones that maybe people here might make at home? OK, so really easy is the white soda. So you need about 400 grams of plain flour, 300 mils or 355 mils of buttermilk, a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda or baking soda and a teaspoon of salt. And that's all you need for that one. And then same ingredients, but with maybe leftover bacon that you've had from breakfast, a bit of grated cheese with some spring onions. Absolutely delicious. Then you've got fruit slims. So that's, again, a soda bread with dried fruit added. You roll it out to about the size of a dinner plate, cut it in four. And then you do those on the griddle or a dry frying pan. So those are fruit soda farls. and then there's treacle farls, there's wheaton farls. Yeah, so those are all the lovely soda bread ones. Delicious. So F-A-R-L-S, what does farls mean? So farl is Ulster Scots for quarter. So they're just the shape of a circle that's been cut into four. So let's talk about biscuits and pancakes, other, you know, quick breads. Yeah. So are pancakes and biscuits similar to what I would make in New England, for example? Talk about buns, biscuits, scones, etc. So the pancake recipe, I suppose you guys, would you call them drop scones? It's a really basic recipe. Again, just a few ingredients, your flour, your egg, your milk, and maybe a wee bit of baking powder. Now, mummy says that years ago when granny made them, she literally had the griddle over the fire and they all lined up after their bath on a Saturday night. And as quickly as she made them and got them off the pan, they all queued up and put a bit of butter or a bit of sugar or something, you know, very simple on them. And then go round again in a circle until all the pancake mixture had gone. She says that was a lovely memory for her. Because I think pancakes, people only really tend to have had pancakes in the north of Ireland whenever it was Shrove Tuesday. Right. So it was only a once a year thing. So it was very exciting. I don't know. You know, I was born at the wrong time. I'm sorry. I just, you know, don't get me started. But I just think like cultures have a rise and fall. And I just don't. I think we're past the good part. Because the idea of having a bath on a Saturday night and standing in line and someone's making pancakes on a griddle over a fire is about as appealing as it gets, I guess. Isn't it just? Isn't it? Barmbrack. That has a great story to it. And do you want to explain what they are and what's entombed in the loaf? So barmbrack is a delicious yeasted fruit bread, enriched fruit bread. It's got this gorgeous, dark, glossy covering. And not only is it delicious fresh with cheese or jam, but it's also delicious toasted. And when you make the dough up, what my granny and Auntie Evelyn used to do actually was wrap each little, there were five little things that were wrapped, little tokens, I suppose you could call them. One was a stick. And that meant an unhappy marriage. One was a ring. That meant you were going to get married. One was a pea or a piece of cloth. And they meant that you weren't going to do very well in life. I mean, it's a bit morbid, really. I was going to say, wait a minute. No, is the first one you'd have a happy marriage or unhappy marriage? The stick, unhappy marriage. Gee, man. Okay, so let's make the list. So we got unhappy marriage. What was the second one? Then you've got the rag or the pee, which meant that you weren't going to have much money. Okay. Then you have the wedding ring. I think we would all have wanted the wedding ring, I have to say. And oh, you have a thimble. What about a thimble? Oh, the thimble. The thimble was like, you know, you were going to be a great woman in the house. You were going to be able to do everything. You could mend, you could cook, you could knit, everything. Does this say something to you about Irish traditions and culture? Oh, like, Chris, years ago, it was like fortune telling. People were in bits if they got the wrong thing. I mean, yeah, very much so now years and years and years ago. But the same thing at Halloween, they would have wrapped silver coins up an apple tart. And if you got the coin, you were delighted. But if you didn't get the coin, there was nothing. So you're like, oh, is there no hope for me? You know, they did take it. It was really important, you know. Okay, let's talk about dessert. I mean, is dessert something, I know a lot of cultures would have a sweet in the afternoon with a cup of tea or coffee. You know, it's late afternoon. A lot of people didn't actually eat desserts per se. Is there a long tradition of actual dessert like there is, you know, puddings in England? and if so what what are some of the things that were pretty common so puddings desserts whatever they would really only have been especially in our house only on a sunday okay because you know they were quite expensive you know all that cream the fruit so we would have done on a sunday you know the apple tart the rhubarb tart an apple sponge so apple on the bottom and maybe a wee bit of lemon in there because mommy loved lemon and then some sponge over the top and rice pudding oh rice pudding with a wee bit of nutmeg and a bit of vanilla so is your rice pudding cooked on top of the stove was it in the oven how do you make rice pudding in the oven so how do you make an apple what's an apple tart like so my granny always did hers on enamel tinned plates or a glass plate a pyrex plate so a lovely rich short cut pastry on the bottom and then she used to do a mixture of stewed apples and raw apples or she would do stewed apples but not cook them down too much so you still had wee chunks of apple in there right and just sweet enough but not too sweet put that all onto your short crust pastry and then if it's Halloween you wrap up your your silver coin and then you put your rich short crust pastry over the top crimp it and then a wee hole in the top for the steam some egg wash over the top and sprinkle with caster sugar so it glistens when it comes out of the oven Oh my word it delicious I actually salivating now It delicious Well yeah I said for 40 years apple pie or apple tart is the highest expression of the culinary arts because if you get it right, it's great. If you don't get it right, it's not great. You know, I don't know. I just, I need to move or something. It's just like everything you talked about is right up my alley. I love to bake and you tell a great story as well. Oh, thank you. But it's like when you go round to someone's house for tea, you never walk into a house in Ireland without being offered a cup of tea and something nice to eat. My daddy always used to say, a cup of tea is awful wet without anything else, isn't it? And that would be his thing. So you'd always have a piece of tart or a bun. And it doesn't matter how many houses you went to in the day. You had to have something, you know. and just that really lovely sense of, you know, come in, you're out, as in come in through the door, you're outside, come in, have a cup of tea, sit down and they'd say, give us a while of your crack and you'd sit and have a wee chat with them. And it was lovely. It's a lovely thing to do. Yeah, well, I don't know whether I should be happy or depressed right now. I think a little bit of both. I mean, you've given me hope for the future, but I'm now depressed about everything we've lost in the past. Sheree, thank you so much. You know, this has just been absolutely charming. And I just love the book, The Irish Bakery. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I've really loved chatting to you. Thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. That was Sheree Denham, author of The Irish Bakery. Sheree mentioned that she scores a cross on the top of her soda bread to let the fairies out so they don't jinx your loaf. Well, here are some other food superstitions. In China, you never gift a knife since it will sever your relationship. The ancient Romans thought that witches could sail on eggshells and sink ships, so eggs were often prohibited on board. Parsley is rife with superstitions. The Greeks thought that the herb was grown from the blood of a baby. And in England, it was taboo to plant parsley because you would be transporting sorrow. But my favorite superstition is from New England and is perfectly aligned with the dour character of my part of the world. If you find a hole in a loaf of bread, it means that someone will die. But on second thought when it comes to bread, maybe I'll just stick with the Irish who are trying to let the fairies out. I'm Christopher Kimball, and this is Milk Street Radio. I'm joined now by Rose Haddebaugh to talk about this week's recipe, spinach and ricotta dumplings in tomato sauce. Rose, how are you? Good, Chris. How are you? I'm good. My favorite place in Rome, isn't that a great way to start a conversation, is Antico Falcone, which is out of the center. It's a more residential area. The chef is Mimo Kalal. He's actually originally from Egypt. You know, it's a very simple dining room, very modern. and the food is similar. It's very simple but perfectly executed. So the dish I just fell in love with is pallini al verde. These are ricotta spinach dumplings served in a very quick tomato sauce. And they were light and, you know, it doesn't sound special, but just one of those dishes you really want to have in your repertoire. But I came back and said, Rose, let's give this want to try. And we had some problems, right? Yes. I mean, like you said, very simple ingredients, just basically what you put inside of a ravioli, ricotta, spinach, whole eggs, a little salt and Parmesan. So it sounds really easy, but they just kept falling apart every time we tried to poach them. So one of the things we realized is that the ricotta that we have here in the United States is very different from what you had in Italy. It's a lot more watery. We found that if you had a ricotta that had stabilizer in it. It wouldn't hold together at all. I put them in the water, they completely fall apart. So there are other recipes that include a little flour. And so we ended up having to do that. So we drained the ricotta to get a little firmer consistency and also added flour. And that seemed to do the trick. So I think he cooked his in a minute or two, but I think ours took a little bit longer, right? Yeah. If we found that we had to refrigerate ours, to hold them together when they were boiled. So we refrigerate them for about half an hour, and then they take about eight to 10 minutes to cook all the way through. And the last thing is, you know, tomato sauces very often in Italy are made in about 10 minutes. It's not like it's cooked all day. So this is another super fresh, super fast tomato sauce that I think just highlights the fresh taste of tomatoes. It's got nothing else in there, essentially. Oh, really simple. Yeah, you just saute a couple of cloves of garlic in oil, add your whole peeled tomatoes, crushed up a little, a little basil, a few minutes on the stove, and that's it. It's really clean and bright. It's perfect with these pallinis. Yeah, this is a recipe everyone should have. So spinach and ricotta dumplings and tomato sauce, pallini al verde, straight from Antico Falcone in Rome. Rose, thank you. You're welcome, Chris. You can get the recipe for spinach and ricotta dumplings in tomato sauce at MilkStreetRadio.com You're listening to Milk Street Radio coming up, the very best way to roast a chicken I'm Christopher Kimball and you're listening to Milk Street Radio Right now, my co-host Sarah Moulton and I will be answering a few more of your cooking questions. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Hi, this is Maurice from Pennington, New Jersey. Hi, Maurice. How can we help you? For a few years now, I've been making gravlax at home, and it's a great thing. It's sort of like a bit of a commitment, but it's really easy. It comes out great. I've got all this nice homemade gravlax. my question is what other fish could i cure in the same way like salmon's great but if i wanted to try something else do you have any ideas or sort of like what should i be looking for is like fat content in the fish or is there something else yeah that it's something that could be cured at home you want a fattier fish you'll just have a much better texture and flavor so you know arctic HR, mackerel, trout. Mackerel. If you can get really fresh bluefish. I mean, bluefish has a bad rap because it's very high and fat and so it can get quite funky. But if you have it fresh, it's absolutely delicious. And it would be a good candidate here. That's actually a great idea. We do get fresh bluefish in New Jersey. You know, they fish it off the coast and you can get it. And we love eating that cooked. My wife likes that a lot. And mackerel, if you get really fresh mackerel, is not nearly as strong as if it's not really fresh. Because most people go, oh, mackerel. Is that an expression? Oh, mackerel. Holy mackerel. If it's very fresh, it's good. I don't know about, I mean, Sarah said trout. I don't think about trout. Trout as being a fatty fish. Trout's not a fatty fish. It is a nice, firm fish, though. Trout's really similar to salmon. But my worry is the trout, the fillets are small. So it'd be like hard to get a good, hard to get a good slice. Unless you could find a 15 pound trout. I don't think so. I've tried wild salmon, which was too lean. Yes. It's very lean. Yeah. I fish for wild salmon up in Canada and the flesh is almost white when the ice goes out in April and May. It's very lean. It's totally different than what you think of as salmon. Yeah. Yeah. We still ate it, but it wasn't satisfying in the same way as Grav Lye. Meanwhile, Chris, you know what? We never did define what gravlax is. Maurice, do you want to tell us what it is since this is your baby? Sure. It is a cold cured fish. So what I do is I get two sides of salmon. I usually just get farm-raised salmon from the supermarket, covered in a mix of brown sugar and kosher salt, put some roughly chopped dill all over it, maybe splash it with some gin or vodka. You wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and you put it in the fridge on a tray. and turn it every 12 hours, keep some weight on it, you know, maybe a heavy cookbook or something, and it cures in the fridge. You lose a lot of liquid, but it's just a beautiful, buttery, succulent fish. My kids like it, and it's way more affordable. It's very expensive to buy, but if you make it yourself, you know, it's more reasonable. Well, that was a beautiful summary of a recipe. You did a beautiful job there. It was poetic. Somebody could make that based on what you just said. I'm very impressed. Yeah. Maurice, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for taking my call. Okay. This is Milk Street Radio. Looking for some dinner inspiration? Well, please give us a ring anytime. 855-426-9843. One more time, 855-426-9843. Or please email us at questions at MilkStreetRadio.com. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? This is Marjorie Ellison. How can we help you? Well, I was just curious about when something calls for buttermilk, are there occasions when you have to use buttermilk? Or can you, in fact, sometimes use kefir, for example, instead of buttermilk? I know you can put lemon in milk, but that's not the same thing. But are there times when it calls for buttermilk that you have to depend upon buttermilk? It's so weird you called with this question because we just tested this. So you came to the right place. This will be the world's shortest call. The answer is yes. Oddly enough, you know, cultured buttermilk is essentially fermented milk. And that's what kefir is. It's fermented milk. From PRX.