Dutch Baby

Well, classes have started again and I have been watching Girls instead of doing homework.  I am so obsessed with that show, it’s not even funny.  I was trying to read the letters of Brutus yesterday before class and got completely side-tracked by season 2.  Luckily the seasons are 10 episodes and there are only two of them, so this shouldn’t be too much of a disaster.  Here’s hoping…

But classes are actually going well, aside from the Girls thing.  For the first time ever the majority are on East Asia, although two out of three are on Japan, but that’s whatever.  It’s still Asia as opposed to some silly gen ed.

But none of you reads this to hear about Asia probably, so I will tell you about this miraculous breakfast thing I made after 4 hours of sleep between the hours of 7:30 and 11.  I got this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Tumblr, and luckily saved it into a Word document before they removed it from free access.  So, take that!

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp of oil of some kind
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups milk (I used almond and it was fine)
• 1 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• toppings, savory or sweet

To do:

Now, usually I am fairly willy-nilly about recipe directions, though not as much as some people i know, but this recipe is important to follow step-by-step.  America’s Test Kitchen is extremely legit, and they know what they’re talking about.  So when they say to do something a certain way… just do it.

So, oil a skillet and stick it in an oven heated to 450 degrees for about 10 minutes.  This will help the dough puff up.  I think…

While that’s heating, mix the flour, cornstarch, and salt together in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, froth the eggs up.

 

Whisk the milk and butter into the eggs, and then add that to the flour mixture in thirds, mixing well after each addition.

 

Pour that into your skillet.  I actually used a pie tin because I don’t have a skillet, and it was shockingly big enough.

 

Bake until the edges are “deep golden brown and crisp” and it’s puffy and delicious looking.

 

The awesome thing about this is that it’s like a mutant crêpe–you can eat it savory or sweet. I think it would go really well with goat cheese, but I think everything goes really well with goat cheese…

 

It’s goo with jam, sugar, speculoos, Nutella…  You name it.  It also keeps pretty well, so you can keep having it for breakfast or for a quick snack.

 

I want you to savor this book recommendation, okay, because it’s the last you’ll get for a while.  The only thing I will be reading this quarter is the Federalist papers, and a book on Japan that I have to pick out eventually since my friend took the one I was going to do.  I’m torn between the two I read over break, but since I suspect no one else cares about urbanization in China, I will go with Xinran’s The Good Women of China.

I have been continually frustrated by the lack of books by and about women in China, particularly as someone who reads a hell of a lot about the country.  But this one….  This is good stuff.  It’s by a woman who hosted a radio show about “women’s issues” in the 80s, back when no one was allowed to talk about anything.  She collected all these horrible stories about women getting gang raped by emergency crews in the aftermath of earthquakes, child abuse, and the awful, awful consequences of female repression in China after the Communist revolution.  It’s dated, but it’s such an excellent book, and so important to read for people who study China and people who want to be Decent Human Beings.  I’m about to try to start another of her books, which will also probably be seriously excellent, but I recommend starting with The Good Women of China.