Deb Perelman - Smitten Kitchen Keepers : New Classics for Your Forever Files: A Cookbook

acknowledgments

To everyone who comes to Smitten Kitchen to read, to cook, to comment, to share, to welcome these recipes into your home and come back with stories of how it went and who ate what and used the word keepers so many times in comments that you, essentially, named this book for me: Thank you. You make this so much fun.

A huge thank-you to everyone at Knopf, especially Reagan Arthur, Sarah New, Morgan Hamilton, Kathy Hourigan, Andy Hughes, Kathleen Fridella, Cassandra Pappas, Lisa Montebello, and Kelly Blair, who have worked so hardthrough pandemics and snags, precedented (me, bad with deadlines) and unprecedented (global pandemic, shipping crisis)to get this book out in the world. It takes a village. I am lucky to have such a strong one on my side.

To Lexy Bloom, thank you for your tireless patience, calm, and unwavering vision for this book.

To Alison Fargis, for giving my projects and whims your all.

To Sara Eagle, for a decade of keeping me organized, supported, and focused on what matters. It will be impossible to fill your impeccable shoes, but Im glad you set the bar so high.

To Rachel Gorman, for being the best addition to my kitchen. Nearly every one of these recipes has been improved by your presence, patience, and opinions.

To Barrett Washburne and Lauren Radel, I still dont know how you did it, but you pulled off the momentous feat of stunningly styling an entire book of recipes from a control freak whos used to doing everything herself in her crappy kitchen and you made it fun. Thank you.

To Sandy Gluck, for your careful recipe testingand local deliveries.

To Tess Le Moing, thank you for the kitchen assistance.

To Anna Painter, for almost two decades of great conversation and for coaxing me off the chicken-and-crouton ledge.

To Jessie Sheehan, for your consistent cheer and caring as much about pot roast as I do.

To Renu Blankinship, for cookie dates, butter chickpea guidance, and constant inspiration.

To both my families: Thank you for your endless support, babysitting, recipe tasting, and for seemingly accepting, ten years in, that the book will be done when its done and theres no need to ask when that will be.

To Anna and Jacob: Thanks for all of the recipe tasting and savagely honest reviews. I am so proud of the people youre becoming.

To Alex Perelman, my favorite person, the best date, and the very definition of a keeper.

Also by Deb Perelman

Smitten Kitchen Every Day

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deb Perelman is a self-taught home cook, a photographer, and the creator of smittenkitchen.com. She is the author of the New York Times best sellers The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, which won the IACP Julia Child Award, and Smitten Kitchen Every Day. Perelman lives in New York City with her husband, son, and daughter.

I sure have a lot of breakfast recipes for someone whose breakfast is just a giant cup of coffee most mornings. Let me explain! First and foremost, not being a weekday breakfast person turns out not to be acceptable grounds for not feeding breakfast to my offspring, who perplex me by being morning people. Buckwheat pancakes with chocolate chips and a cheesy single-egg sandwich that can be made while youre still half asleep are no accident. More recipes in this section fall into the more leisurely weekend breakfast category, or need not be limited to the morning hours at all. Zucchini Cornbread is picnic-perfect; Slumped Parmesan Frittata is great for lunch, brunch, or a light dinner. Peanut Butter, Oat, and Jam Bars are a coveted afternoon snack of all household age groups. The Breakfast Potato Chips, with or without Sheet Pan Eggs, make a frequent appearance on our dinner table. And you can bring me those Challah Cheesecake Buns at any hour of the day; I do not mind one bit.

sour cream and flaky cheddar biscuits

This is the kind of biscuit you might make once on a whim, but should you make the mistake, as I did, of sharing it with family, friends, or perhaps an entire pre-kindergarten classroom, do know that it will not be the last time you make thembecause puddles of crispy cheddar cheese you can pick off in salty, lacy chiplike flakes make an impression on people. Initially, Id intended to add spinach (just a handful of fresh leaves, chopped harmlessly small) for more of a breakfast-in-one-hearty-cube effect, yet, strangely, nobody in the four-year-old set seemed pleased with this when I offered to do so next time. Having tested it both ways many times since, Ive realized theyre not wrong.

If you, like me, love an accordion-like biscuit, with layers that spring tall, begging to be pulled apart in small, buttery squares, then the quarter-then-stack technique here (which I first learned from the wonderful Claire Saffitz) is so gloriously simple, you wont want to make breakfast biscuits another way. With no fancy folds or turns, and not even a rolling pin required, this has not-really-a-morning-person, aka me, written all over it.

makes 9 biscuits plus 1 snack

2 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking powder

teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoons (4 grams) kosher salt

A few grinds of black pepper

Heaped teaspoon onion powder

12 tablespoons (170 grams, or 6 ounces) unsalted butter, diced

4 ounces (115 grams) sharp cheddar, cut into -inch cubes (heaped cup)

cup (180 grams) sour cream

Flaky salt, to finish

Heat the oven to 400F (205C), and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, black pepper, and onion powder. Add the butter to the bowl, and use your fingers or a pastry blender to squash the pieces into flatter bits, pinching and tossing until the mixture has tiny clumps throughout. Stir in the cheddar, then the sour cream. (The mixture will seem crumbly, but it will come together, I promise.)

Flour your counter, and dump the dough and any unmixed floury bits onto it, kneading it once or twice to bring it together. Pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick square. Use a knife or bench scraper to divide it into quarters; then stack the quarters. Repeat this process, patting the dough into a thick square a second time, re-flouring the counter if needed, and stuffing any loose scraps of dough between the layers.

Transfer the dough slab to the prepared baking sheet, and pat it into a -inch-tall square. Place the tray in the freezer and keep it there for 7 to 10 minutes, until its cool and semi-firm to the touch. Remove from the freezer. Use a sharp knife to trim inch from each side, and squish these pieces into a bonus biscuit you do not need to tell anyone about. Cut the newly trimmed large square into nine approximately 2-inch-square biscuits, and space them out on the sheet. Sprinkle with flaky salt. (If youd like to bake them another day, freeze them at this point. Let them warm up at room temperature for 15 minutesthey will not fully defrostbefore baking.)

Bake the biscuits for 16 to 19 minutes, until they are deep golden brown at the edges and some cheese is melted in crisp puddles around the edges. Eat right away.

peanut butter, oat, and jam bars