Parmesan Popovers

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese, divided
1 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coat a 6 cup muffin tin with cooking spray

In a large bowl combine the 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, the milk, eggs, butter, flour and salt and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Pour batter evenly into the muffin tin and sprinkle the top with remaining tablespoon of cheese.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and puffy.

Cool slightly before removing from muffin tins. Serve immediately

I used a large 6 muffin tin but I should have used the really deep muffin tins that I have that makes huge popovers.

They didn't last more than 5 minutes after I took them out of the oven,

Theses sound wonderful, Franklin. I have such trouble with popovers, that I rarely try them. We have a restaurant in the area that makes huge popovers with whipped honey butter, so I get my fix there, lol.
When I am free of this nasty flu, I will give yours a try. Thanks for posting the recipe.

it is such an easy recipe and I'm sure you won't have any trouble with it.

Those do sound good ! - My mother used to make popovers on special occasions, but I havn't had one in years.

They are not hard to make at all, I usually put the pan in the oven with some butter in each section and let the butter get hot and bubbly, then put the batter into the hot pan and they really puff up then. I like to eat them with honey. This cheezy recipe sounds great too, gotta try it.

I love popovers too, but have never had them with the cheese -- definitely on my must-try list !

I'm making these crispy and delicious Sourdough Baguettes to go with some soup tonight:

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
2 cups sourdough starter, about the consistency of thick pancake batter; fed, or unfed*
4 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (4 1/2 to 5)
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 packet yeast
4 teaspoons vital wheat gluten (optional -- I don't use this)
1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for glaze; optional
Pizza seasoning, sesame seeds, artisan bread topping, or anything else you think might be good; all optional

*If you feed your sourdough before using, the loaves will rise better; but if you're in a hurry, unfed sourdough will simply lend its flavor, while the yeast in the recipe takes care of the rise.

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine the water, starter, and 3 cups of the flour, mixing until smooth.
2. Stir in the salt, sugar, yeast and gluten, then an additional 1-1/2 to 2 cups of flour. Stir until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, adding only enough additional flour as necessary; a slack (sticky) dough makes a light loaf.
3. Knead the dough for about 7 minutes in a stand mixer; or 8 to 10 minutes by hand, on a lightly greased work surface. You may also knead this dough using the dough cycle on your bread machine; once it's finished kneading, transfer it to a bowl to rise, as directed below.
4. Turn the dough into an oiled bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.
5. Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into six pieces (for thin baguettes); or three pieces (for thicker Italian loaves). NOTE: I divide into 4 pieces, which makes French bread loaves a little larger than the skinny baguettes.
6. Shape each piece into a 16" long loaf, and place the loaves, at least 4" apart, on parchment-lined baking sheets, or in lightly greased baguette pans (French loaf pans). If you're using baguette pans, make the loaves 15" long.
7. Cover the loaves with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let them rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until they're nice and puffy. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 450F.
8. If desired, gently brush the loaves with egg yolk glaze, and sprinkle them generously with Pizza Seasoning, artisan bread topping, or the toppings of your choice. If you're not brushing the loaves with egg yolk, spray them with olive oil spray; this will help them brown.
9. For a classic look, make three diagonal slashes in each loaf, cutting about 1/4" deep. For taller, rounder baguettes, don't slash.
10. Bake the baguettes for about 25 minutes, or until they're a rich golden brown. Remove the loaves from the oven. Turn off the oven, crack it open a few inches, and return the loaves to the cooling oven, without their pans. Letting the loaves cool right in the turned-off oven helps preserve their crunchy crust.

Oh my. I have copied and printed both recipes. I need to get some sourdough starter going. Have had some off and on over the years but didn't use it regularly enough I have heard you can freeze starter for a while then thaw it out as you need it.

My favorite Amish bakery makes a 10 grain bread that has quickly become our favorite bread for toasting and whatever else you can imagine. Since I can only go there twice a year, I decided to do a search and see if I could come up with a similar product. The following recipe is one of the nicest doughs I have ever worked with and the finished product is a perfect match. I hope you enjoy it also. It makes two regular sized bread pans.

Karen's Multigrained Bread

1 1/4 cup 10 grain hot cereal mix ( 7 is ok also) I used Bob's Red Mill
2 1/2 cup boiling water
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour ( i use white whole wheat from King Arthur)
1/4 c. honey
4 Tbs. butter--melted and cooled
2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1 Tbs. table salt

1. Pour the boiling water over the cereal mix and set aside for about an hour. It should cool to apprx. 100 degrees and soak up all the water. It is very important here that you are using a hot cereal mix and not just a regular cereal.
2. Combine the two flours in a large bowl.
3. Add the honey, melted butter, and the yeast to the cooled cereal. Mix this dough to combine.
4. Put this dough in stand mixer with dough hook attachment on low speed slowly adding in the combined flours. Mix for about 2 minutes until dough forms a ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 20 minutes.
5. ***Add the salt to the bowl and mix/knead with dough hook for 5 - 7 minutes until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. If this doesn't happen in 3-5 minutes you will need to add 2 Tbs more of flour which I did have to do.
6. Coat the dough lightly with oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set in warm place for about 40 minutes. Grease two regular sized loaf pans with oil.
7. When the dough has doubled, cut in half. Flatten each half into a rectangle and then tightly roll the rectangle into a loaf that fits the pan. Lightly brush loaves with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 40 minutes or until they have risen above the edge of the pans.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Cool in pans for 5 minutes.

***Adding in the salt after the first rest keeps the dough from becoming tough. I though this was really odd, so I did a search and sure enough, that is correct.

Karen, that sounds like a wonderful bread recipe -- although I have to say it's the first time I've ever seen one that called for adding the salt after the first rest like that; it seems like it would be hard to incorporate it through the dough at that point... (I don't have a bread machine, though) Definitely adding it to my must-try list -- in fact, I'm going to pick up the cereal mix when I go for groceries later this week!

Just wanted to note that I edited my sourdough recipe above to change the yeast from 1 tablespoon to 1 packet (which is actually 2-1/4 teaspoons and is plenty of yeast). I'm sure either measurement would work just fine, though!

Mary Stella, I just store my starter -- about 3/4 cup or so, right after feeding it, in a pint jar in the fridge (leave the top loose), and haul it out every few months (if I haven't been using it otherwise) to give it a few feedings to make it nice and active again. Most of the recipes I have actually don't call for any yeast in addition to the starter -- but they require a much longer rise time that way. For anyone interested in getting started with sourdough baking, I highly recommend the website www.sourdoughhome.com -- there's a wealth of information there.

I made the Parmesean Popovers. Questons: They were lovely when I took them out but fell quickly. And when I took one out of the cupcake pan and turned it over, it was sort of hollow. I have seen popover skillets that require you to roll the popover over in the skillet after half the cooking time. And they come out round. Did I do something wrong. I also used fresh grated parmesean. I chopped it after grating to come up with smaller pieces. My mandolin grates so fine that it almost tends to clump together so I use the larger size grater.

Sandy, that was an Interesting article on the sourdough.

Mary, the pan you are talking about is called an Ebelskiver (spelled wrong probably but too lazy to go look it up). It produces a doughnut like product that is solid and you usually stuff them with some sort of filling. A popover is big and puffy and should be hollow with a wet membrane like center that is often removed before eating if you are faint of heart, lol. I have always had problems making them, and have read various reasons for those problems. One of them being the eggs should be room temperature. Glad to hear I am not the only one that is "popover challenged".

Well, I also forgot to mention that I used bread flour. They remind me of huge cream puff pastry. I didn't use room temp eggs as the recipe didn't call for that. Husband has eaten four. I was thinking that I could fill them with a crab filling like I do the mini ones I make for snacks. I also maybe should have used regular old in a plastic jar parmesen rather than fresh. I may give them one more chance. I could make them in the smaller regular size cup cake tins rather than the uber cupcake tins. Then they wouldn't be so big that stuffing them would make two a meal.

"They were lovely when I took them out but fell quickly."

LOL, as far as I know, that's what popovers "do". Maybe Frank @Herbie43 will chime in here with his experience!

Popovers are by nature empty inside. we have special muffin tins that are very deep and if I used them the finished product would be almost 3 times the size in my photo. I am going to make them again using the right tins and I will show pictures of everything. I did use eggs that were at room temperature but I don't think that has anything to do with it. two of the popovers I made did flatten out a bit though.

Shrimp Egg Fu Young

1/2 pound fresh shrimp, shelled, deveined, and cut into small pieces
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp sherry
5 eggs
1 tsp light soy sauce
4 tbls oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 scallion, chopped
4 water chestnuts, chopped
1/4 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
4 cups oil

Sauce
1 cup chicken stock or broth
2 tbls light soy sauce
1 tbls cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbls. water

Instructions

Dry shrimp. Add 1/2 tsp of salt, cornstarch, and 1 tsp of sherry. Mix well

Beat eggs in a large bowl. Add soy sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 tsp sherry. Set aside.

Heat 2 tbls of oil in wok or frying pan. Stir-fry onions, scallion, and water chestnuts 1 minute. Add mushrooms. Stir fry 30 seconds. Remove contents ndset side.

Heat 2 tbls oil in same pan. Stir=fry shrimp and bean sprouts until shrimp turn pink. Remove from heat and let cool.

Add all ingredients to egg mixture.

To make the sauce, bring stock or broth to boil. Add soy sauce. Thicken with dissolved cornstarch. Season with pepper to taste and set aside.

Heat the 4 cups of oil to 400 degrees, testing by adding a piece of the scallion. (it should turn brown quickly). Gently ladle 1/4 cup egg mixture in into pan and deep fry until golden brown. Fold over and fry other side until golden brown. Remove and keep warm while you cook the rest of the egg mixture. Serve with the sauce.



Notes

I have tried different recipes for egg fu young and this is by far the best one. I make my own fried rice but you can use any rice to put the fu young on top of.

You can also substitute shredded roast pork, beef, chicken or turkey instead of shrimp

Franklin, could a person use a regular 12 hole muffin pan to make these? I know they would be small, but would that be ok?

yes they would come out ok but smaller. I am making two different batches right now. I will post pictures as soon as I am finished

And the bread flour? Would that make a difference. Since I didn't realize how they would turn out (visually) I thought bread flour would give them a light crumb. What a surprise.

I would like to ask what all of you do when a recipe calls for grated Parmesan cheese? It used to always mean the fine stuff in the green container by Kraft. Shredded was in containers in the deli counter, and had more substance to it. I think there is some confusion as to what to use, and I think sometimes it makes a difference to the success of the recipe .

I use both the stuff in the jar, and fresh gratted. It's such a hard cheese that it doesnt shread all that well. Mostly it breaks up into small pieces. I kind of like the bigger chunks.