Blueberry delicacies

This week, inspired by the beautiful fresh blueberries I bought at Hollister’s Farmers Market on Wednesday, I thought I would review some of the best-known food

Web sites not only for blueberry recipes but for how enjoyable and useful they were. I was aware of a few and I thought a quick search would provide a good list to review.

When I entered “recipes” into Google, it took 14 seconds to produce more than 57 million entries!

Clearly, I needed to be more selective.

Rather than be scientifically objective, I picked the sites I was already familiar with, and added a couple that seemed interesting: www.cooking.com, www.epicurious.com, www.cooksillustrated.com, and Hollister’s own www.happycookers.com.

Cooking.com is essentially a catalog, with the home page currently featuring a Clearance Sale on cookware and other kitchen items. The tabs at the top include one for recipes, and when you click on that, the recipe home page has ads for Smuckers, Jif peanut butter and Crisco. There’s a search box to enter a keyword, and when I entered “blueberry,” a list of 35 recipes, categorized by type, appeared. “Blueberry Grunt with Hazelnut Topping,” looked good but didn’t make the final cut.

Epicurious.com is the Web presence of Conde Nast publishing’s food magazines, Bon Appetit and Gourmet. The home pages display feature stories, contests and links to related sites, as wells as a couple of ads.

You can enter a recipe keyword directly from the home page, rather than having to go to a recipe section. When I typed in “blueberry,” the resulting list was 119 recipes long! Rather than being sorted by category, recipes are rated (from one to four forks) by readers according to whether they would make the dish again.

Well, 119 isn’t 57 million but I was still overwhelmed. When the first three pages didn’t give any cobbler- or crisp-type recipes with a solid four forks, I gave up.

Cooksillustrated.com is the Web site of the public television show America’s Test Kitchen. The home page has more tabs than many, and ads for Cook’s Illustrated magazine and their sponsors. You can search recipes by keyword directly from the home page, as well as by clicking on the recipes tab.

Recipes from the current season are available to all, but the recipe archive is only available if you pay to join. I swallowed hard, then did join because I wanted to see what they had to say about blueberry cobbler. This recipe, and others I looked at, contains not just ingredients and methods, but a rationale for why the ingredients and methods are as they are.

Finally, I checked out happycookers.com, maintained by Dorothy McNett of Dorothy McNett’s Place in Hollister. I received an awful surprise: the shop and Web site are going out of business and the recipes are currently not available.

A note on blueberries: whether you buy them from a farmers’ market or supermarket, they should be rinsed and picked over to remove any stems, dust or other debris before using. They can be refrigerated for a day or two but really are best when used as soon as possible after purchase.

Blueberry Grunt with Hazelnut Topping

from Cooking.com

For Filling:

3 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

For Topping:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3 firmly packed tblsp light brown sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, finely chopped

3 Tbsp. chilled unsalted butter

3 Tbsp. chilled whipping cream

Powdered sugar

For filling:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Step 2: Generously butter 9-inch pie plate.

Step 3: Combine blueberries with sugar, flour and lemon juice in medium bowl.

Step 4: Transfer to prepared pan. Bake until berries bubble thickly in center, about 1 hour. Cool completely.

For topping:

Step 1: Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

Step 2: Add butter and hazelnuts and blend until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Step 3: Stir in cream, mixture will form ball.

Step 4: Pat dough out between two sheets of plastic wrap to 9-inch round. Remove 1 sheet plastic wrap and invert dough evenly onto blueberries in dish. Crimp edges decoratively with fork.

Step 5: Bake until topping is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Cool until warm. Sift powdered sugar over grunt and serve with heavy cream or vanilla ice cream.

Blueberry Cobbler     

from Cooks Illustrated.com

This recipe also bakes the fruit separately from the topping. While the blueberries are baking, prepare the ingredients for the biscuit topping, but do not stir the wet into the dry ingredients until just before the berries come out of the oven.

Serves 6 to 8

Filling

1/2 cup granulated sugar 

1 Tbsp. cornstarch 

pinch ground cinnamon 

pinch table salt 

6 cups fresh blueberries 

1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest 

1 Tbsp. lemon juice 

Biscuit Topping

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. cornmeal

1/4 cup granulated sugar plus 2 teaspoons for sprinkling

2 tsp. baking powder 

1/4 tsp. baking soda 

1/4 tsp. table salt 

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter , melted

1/3 cup buttermilk 

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 

1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon 

For the filling:  

Step 1: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees.

Step 2: Stir sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and salt together in large bowl.

Step 3: Add berries and mix gently with rubber spatula until evenly coated; add lemon zest and juice and mix to combine.

Step 4: Transfer berry mixture to 9-inch glass pie pan, place pie pan on rimmed baking sheet, and bake until filling is hot and bubbling around edges, about 25 minutes.

For the biscuit topping:

Step 1: Whisk flour, cornmeal, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl to combine.

Step 2: Whisk melted butter, buttermilk and vanilla in small bowl.

Step 3: Mix remaining 2 teaspoons sugar and cinnamon in second small bowl and set aside.

Step 4: One minute before berries come out of the oven, add wet ingredients to dry ingredients; stir with rubber spatula until just combined and no dry pockets remain.

To assemble the cobbler:

Step 1: Remove berries from oven; increase oven temperature to 425 degrees.

Step 2: Pinch off 8 equal-sized pieces biscuit dough and place on hot berry filling, spacing them at least 1/2 inch apart (they should not touch).

Step 3: Sprinkle each mound of dough with cinnamon-sugar.

Step 4: Bake until filling is bubbling and biscuits are golden brown on top and cooked through, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool cobbler on wire rack 20 minutes and serve.