Scrumdiddlyumptious

Charlie Bucket finds the last Golden Ticket! Yay, Charlie!

This week's movie at Pier 46 on the Hudson River was the 1971 production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" which left me wide open to planning an appropriately themed menu for the event. My gut reaction was Oooh! An all-chocolate-and-candy dinner! But then my actual gut went Ewww! An all-chocolate-and-candy dinner!

Luckily, my friend Ellen, who unfortunately couldn't join us for dinner, got the more realistic menu ball rolling by suggesting the main course: Mexican mole which, while taking on more forms and variations than one can count, often incorporates the use of chocolate. That was just dish I needed to start working around.

From there, figuring out the other dishes was easy. I knew I wanted to have a dish correspond to each kid in the movie. And so it went like this:

• Charlie Bucket- cabbage slaw and oven-roasted potatoes (because the Buckets were really poor, and they ate a lot of cabbage soup, and potatoes seemed to fit with the cabbage)
• Veruca Salt- golden eggs (because she wanted one of the golden egg-laying geese)
  
• Mike Teevee- TV dinner trays (a literal dish!)
• Augustus Gloop- chocolate lava cake (because he fell into the chocolate river)
• Violet Beauregarde- blueberry cobbler (say it with me: "Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!")
  

It was a beautiful night out on the water where the cool breezes made me forget it was a sweltering summer in New York. James and Naomi joined in and brought sparkling water to mix with some lime juice, mint, and sugar I'd prepared to make citrusy spritzers. We chowed down mightily, the three of us eating all but two bites of the giant cobbler portioned for six. Gershwin, Porter, and Ethel also joined in (they went through extensive washing before they were allowed to sit in and on the food) which was fine because they didn't eat much.

Sadly, this was the last of the movies on the Hudson for this summer, but I know next year will bring more movies and more picnics and more excuses to make two desserts for one dinner.




To make golden eggs, mix a cup of boiling water with a fat teaspoon of turmeric in a bowl big enough to fit your eggs. Let that steep for a minute or two, then add in your peeled hardboiled eggs*. Add enough cool water to completely cover the eggs, and stir the eggs and water gently. Let the egg sit for an hour or two. Drain the water. Keep eggs in the fridge till ready to serve.

*For perfect hardboiled eggs, place the eggs in a pot with enough cold water to cover them. Set the pot to boil, but just as it's about to boil, cut the heat, cover the pot, and let the eggs sit for 10-12 minutes being sure to get the eggs out of that hot water and into some cold water right away.



Porter and Gershwin provide backup for Ethel, who sits on a golden egg.






This was my first stab ever at mole, and I was totally overwhelmed by the number of recipes that exist out there. I decided to use this recipe as a baseline, adjusting for availability of ingredients where I had to. So instead of serrano peppers I used jalapeños; I used currants instead of golden raisins; I had dried ancho chiles, ñoras, and guajillos; I threw in some pecans along with the sesame seeds, almonds, and spices.

And then I stood back, a bit apprehensive about this mass of glop I'd created. But then I tasted it, and it wasn't so bad. And by the next day, once the flavors had really had a chance to meld, it started to taste pretty good. And then when I added the sauce to the shredded, braised chicken thighs that had cooked down into a rich broth, I really got happy.







From furthest left: cabbage slaw, golden egg, Porter, Gershwin, Ethel, ancho chile fries, and chicken mole over rice, all sitting on a TV dinner tray.








Okay, so Charlie Bucket and his family weren't exactly Mexican, but I was trying to work around the mole.

For the ancho chile fries, I used large Russet potatoes, peeled them, then cut them into steak fries. They're tossed with a generous amount of olive oil, and some ancho chile powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne. I baked them in a 450F degree oven in a single layer on a baking sheet, checking every now and again and turning them over. Mine took about 45 minutes to get to the level of brownness I wanted; your cooking time might vary.












Three cheers for ancho chile fries!







Again, cumin-cabbage slaw probably wasn't standard fare in the Bucket household, but it went with the potatoes and mole.

Start with some thinly sliced cabbage. Set it in a colander and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Toss it with your hands, then set the colander over a bowl or a sink and let it drain out some of its moisture. Let it go for a couple of hours or longer, tossing it occasionally and shaking the water out.

When you're ready to assemble the slaw, transfer the cabbage to a bowl. Heat a tablespoon of mild tasting oil (canola or lighter-style olive oil) in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add in a half teaspoon of cumin seeds and let them infuse the oil for a minute or so. Just keep a close eye on it so it doesn't burn.

Pour the oil over the cabbage (be careful because you've got hot oil hitting slightly damp cabbage which can cause a bit of splattering). Add a few generous grinds of black pepper, a tablespoon or two of fresh lime or lemon juice, and a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds (sunflower seeds would be fine, too).


Ethel wades enthusiastically in the cabbage slaw.





The chocolate lava cake was not in the least bit lava-y, thanks to my forgetting it was in the oven and overcooking it. But it was dense and tasty with the addition of just a little cinnamon. I can't say I particularly loved this cake, so I'll not post the recipe. But I'll officially embark on a search for a recipe that I do love.















Blueberry cobbler comes in many forms-- this one has a cakey top (as opposed to, say, a biscuit top). It's a cinch to make:

Prepare the fruit:
In 9-inch square baking dish pour in a 16-ounce bag of frozen blueberries (of course you can use other fruits either alone or in combination, or you can use fresh fruit). Sprinkle an optional tablespoon of flour, cornstarch, or arrowroot powder over the fruit. You can add a tablespoon or two of sugar if you want and maybe even some cinnamon. Toss the fruit and additions well to make sure everything is evenly coated.








For the cobbler topping, mix in a bowl:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

Using your fingtertips, mix in:
1/2 stick soft, unsalted butter
until the mixture looks like lumpy sand. It shouldn't be completely uniform.

Add in:
1/2 cup milk
Stir gently until just incorporated.

Spoon batter evenly over fruit. Bake in a 350F degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the topping tests clean. Depending on the size of your cooking vessel (and therefore the depth of the batter), cooking time can be ten, maybe fifteen minutes longer. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.