Apple Crisp | My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl

Apple crisp is my first post as we embark on cooking along with Ruth Reichl at IHCC. The book Ruth Reichl, my Kitchen Year is an autobiography and a cook book. She reflected on how she got through the year (2009-2010) after she unexpectedly lost her job as the Editor in Chief of Gourmet magazine. You can surmise that everyone has experienced stressful periods of profound loss and dislocations in his/her life. Ruth wrote about how she’d survived those rough patches during that year by cooking. In the book, she walked us through the “136 recipes that saved her life.”

That is, exactly, the coping mechanism I’d need to fortify to help navigate the vicissitudes of life. Like it or not, there’ll be dark and cloudy days ahead. Food may be the last thing on our minds. However, that’s precisely the time we’d need comfort food — sustaining and restorative — in order to get better.

It’d be advantageous to build a repertoire of dishes I can cook off the top of my head, the way Ruth has demonstrated — with ease and grace and without relying much on long recipes. In other words, I want to shift my focus to cooking soulful food with steps that come naturally to my way of cooking, while using mostly pantry staples.

I received a basket of apples from a friend who came to visit. Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year  starts in the fall season; apple crisp shows up on page 37 in the early chapters. What an easy coincident I can just open the book and start cooking from back to back.

Besides apples, the ingredients you need are lemon, flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and butter. I take out a 9-inch baking dish. Peel, core and slice the apples. Peeling apples is among one of the knife skills I’ve perfected since an early age. It has become a mindless, yet affirming, act of going through the motion. Prepare the crumble by mixing the flour with brown sugar and three-quarter stick of butter (90 grams). It is far easier than making a dough crust for a pie. Pat the crumble over the layers of apple in the baking dish. Bake at 375°F for about 45 minutes, or until the crisp turns golden brown.

The smell of apples baking in the kitchen is fragrant and compelling and reminds me of the changing season. There is not a chance the apple crisp won’t turn out delicious. Delectable when served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Next morning, I spooned a big chunk of the leftover apple crisp with oatmeal for breakfast. The sweet and sour taste of the apples and the crunch of the crisp work remarkably well with the plain oatmeal. It’s an entirely different dish and every bit as flavorful.

Apple crisp served with ice cream

Print Recipe

Apple Crisp

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 5 heirloom apples
• 1 lemon
• 2/3 cup (76 g) all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup (135 g) brown sugar
• salt
• cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (100 g) chopped walnuts or almonds, optional
• 6 tablespoon (90 g) unsalted butter

Instructions

1

Peel a few different kinds of apples. Core, slice and layer the apples into a buttered baking dish and toss them with the juice of the lemon.

2

MIx the flour with the brown sugar, and add a dash of salt and a grating of fresh cinnamon.

3

Cut in the butter, then pat the mixture over the top of the apples.

4

Put the apple crisp into a 375°F oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until the juice is bubbling at the edges and the top is crisp and golden.

Notes

Adapted from Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year