About Jack & Barbra Donachy

Writers, photographers, food lovers, anglers, travelers and students of poetry

Lighter than Air: Cream Puffs and Eclairs

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Friends who share a love of baking and cream-filled pastries dipped in chocolate ganache warmed up a rainy afternoon in our kitchen north of the Arctic Circle.

Perfectly turned out pastry puffs filled with delectable cream and dipped in chocolate ganache are the the stuff of home bakers’ dreams. Cream puffs and eclairs require a special dough called pâte à choux. Worked to exactly the right consistency, this dough bakes up light and flaky and leaves a hollow space in the center of the confection. Although we used traditional vanilla-flavored pastry cream, we also imagined filling these airy profiteroles with fresh whipped cream, homemade ice cream and even savories such as smoked salmon cream.

Making cream puffs and eclairs can’t be rushed. The pâte à choux dough requires time and attention in order to get it to the correct consistency as it cooks on the stove top. Next, it must be carefully piped onto a baking sheet and placed in the oven where it will finish. Creating the pastry cream is fairly easy, and making chocolate ganache is magical.

All that work, and between three bakers, three tasters and steaming mugs of of rooibos almond tea, our eclairs and puffs disappeared in short order.

Pâte à Choux

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
4 oz. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
up to 4 eggs

Directions

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Pour milk and water into medium pan.
Stir in salt and sugar.
Add butter.
Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat.
Take mixture off heat and stir in all the flour. Mixture should look like mashed potatoes.
Return pan to low heat and stir continuously. This will dry out the dough a little.
Dough should come together to form a ball.
Starchy residue at the bottom of the pan is an indicator that the dough is dried out enough.
Take dough off stove and place it in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Turn it to low to allow the dough to be cooled off by the mixer.
Mix in eggs one at a time, watching that the dough does not become too thin. The dough should be soft, creamy, and shiny.
Transfer the dough to a piping bag with a large tip.
Pipe ball shapes onto parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving plenty of room for these puffs to double in size.
Bake puffs for 10 minutes.
Turn oven down to 325 degrees F and continue to bake for 15 minutes.
Fill with chilled whipping cream or pastry cream – savory or sweet.

These will freeze nicely.

Ptarmigan and Cloudberries: A Walk on Alaska’s Arctic Tundra

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Looking almost like exquisite mounts in a museum diorama, these Willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) proved to be quite approachable. While hiking on the tundra near Point Hope in September we came across two coveys totaling about 20 birds.

Nipped with frost, these cloudberries tasted like sorbet and were no doubt what had drawn the ptarmigan.

Barbra cautiously approached the birds as I lay on my stomach, inching through the boggy terrain, shooting, hoping a few shots might come out.

The plumage of these fall birds is in transition from the mottled browns and reds of summer to the snow white of winter. These are the same species as the red grouse of Scotland.

Barbra crouches and stalks closer to the birds. Note the densely feathered legs. The Latin lagopus translates to “hare foot” for the resemblance of ptarmigans’ feather-covered legs and feet to those of snowshoe hares.

There’s always evidence of a rich ecosystem on the Arctic tundra. Caribou antlers, bird nests, animal burrows and an amazing array of plants are part of our walks.

Brown bears (grizzlies) are common visitors to the beaches and tundra near Point Hope. We found a set of fresh tracks along the shores of an inlet off the Chukchi Sea not far from where we encountered the ptarmigan. Red foxes, Arctic foxes, Arctic ground squirrels, weasels and caribou are frequently seen mammals. Wolves and musk oxen are less common, but also figure in the mix. In the foothills and mountains east of Point Hope there are wolverines and at higher elevations, Dall sheep. Rarely, moose are seen in the scrub willows along the nearby Kukpuk River, and during the winter months polar bears show up both on the sea ice and on land.

During the fall migration, snow geese are fairly common. (Above and below)

Brandt, Canada geese, and a wide variety of ducks and shore birds are also common.

When the ptarmigan finally had enough of us, they glided off a few yards, regrouped and resumed feeding. At that point we turned for home.

A handful of frozen sweetness for the road.

A pair of sandhill cranes lifts off above the last of the cotton grass on the tundra near Point Hope.

Inupiat (Eskimo) Yo-Yo with Polar Bear Fur

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Fashioned from polar bear fur and finished with intricate beading, this Inupiat yo-yo has transcended it’s traditional purpose to become art. Based on a bola design, in olden times tools like this were made of rocks tethered together with sinew and were used to catch birds.

Beautifully crafted by Molly Oktollik, one of the elders here in the village of Point Hope, Alaska, this Inupiat “yo-yo” isn’t what most of us envision when we hear the word yo-yo. In former times, they were made of rocks held fast on sinew tethers and in the right hands were a formidable tool for catching birds. Ptarmigan, for one species, are often easy to get close to, and ducks and sea birds returning to their headland roosts typically fly in on a low trajectory.

These days yo-yos are crafted as pieces of art, or, when less elaborate, as toys. It takes a certain skill, but the two ends can be made to rotate in opposite directions – that is, with one end revolving around the center handle clockwise, and the other revolving counterclockwise. It’s a pretty cool trick if you can get it to work.

Paul Klaver’s Short, Power Film, Eloquently Captures an Ecosystem

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Paul Klaver’s 13-minute film, Alaska the Nutrient Cycle beautifully captures the critical role wild salmon play in sustaining a rich, diverse ecosystem. Unscripted but with beautiful background music, this breathtaking footage speaks for itself. This is why wild salmon and their environments are worth fighting for, and illustrates why we oppose farmed salmon.

Lattice Top Apple Pie with Baked-On Cinnamon Sauce

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Cinnamon sauce baked into the lattice-top crust makes this apple pie irresistible. The only debate was whether to enjoy it with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese or a scoop of homemade vanilla bean ice cream.

Last week’s baking lesson was all about baking with butter: buttery cranberry scones, fluffy butter biscuits, and two kinds of pie – lemon meringue and a lattice-topped apple. After learning how to create the lattice top, which was surprisingly easy, we took a basic apple filling and poured the liquid you would normally mix into the apples over the top of the pie, allowing the flavors to bake into the lattice and surround the apples inside. This apple pie was served hot out of the oven to friends with cinnamon vanilla ice cream as fortification against a chilly day north of the Arctic Circle.

Apple Pie with Baked-on Cinnamon Sauce

Ingredients

5 Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled, and sliced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pastry crust for 9-inch double crust pie

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Toss apples in lemon juice. Set aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in flour to form a paste.
Add water, granulated sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
Place the bottom crust in your pan.
Fill with apples, mounded slightly.
Cover with a lattice work crust.
Gently pour the sugar and butter mixture over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.
Let cool slightly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or a slice of sharp cheddar cheese.

Plastic Seas: From Water Bottles to Cigarette Butts, It All Becomes Tiny Particles, and It’s the Tiny Particles that are Most Deadly

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

This tiny jellyfish and the octopus behind it are about the size of a pencil led, translucent, and barely visible to the naked eye. Key species near the base of the food web such as herring, sardines, menhaden and mullet routinely ingest plastic fragments as they filter the water for the nutritious plankton they feed on.

Pacific herring feed by facing into the current, hanging their jaws open, and sifting out tiny plants and animals. As plastics break down into fragments – as all plastics from discarded shopping bags to cigarette butts eventually do – the fragments mix in with the rest of the planktonic drift and are consumed by small fish… which are in turn consumed by larger fish, whales, sea lions and us.

squid micro eye n

The tethered balloon that slipped from a child’s hand

The monofilament net the fisherman left hanging on a reef

The cigarette butt that doesn’t matter

and shopping bags,

and Christmas ribbons,

and cups used only once

and the plastic packaging

inside the shopping bags,

the throw-away toys

inside the Christmas package

the straws and the lids on the used-once cups

are smothering our oceans

and everything in our oceans

and us.

These photos were taken at the Seward Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska. Visit an aquarium today to learn more about what you can do to help keep our oceans clean and healthy.

Wild Trout and Salmon Make a Landscape More Beautiful: 10 Reasons We Use Our Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend to Support Trout Unlimited

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Reason #1: Because baby orcas need milk, and this mother needs a healthy diet of wild salmon to produce that milk. (Orca mother and offspring, Gulf of Alaska)

Reason #2: Because Monica’s pregnant and eating for three. (Brown bear affectionately named Monica by local park rangers, Salmon Creek, Hyder, Alaska)

Reason #3: Because the ocean is full of nutrients which salmon embody as they return to their natal rivers and streams, and salmon forests thrive on salmon fertilizer courtesy of all the bears, eagles, mink, crows, ravens, otters, foxes and other animals that eat salmon. (Wild currants, Ptarmigan Creek, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska)

Reason #4: Because this merganser needs to find fresh salmon eggs to keep her brood well fed and growing. (Common mergansers, Salmon Creek, Hyder, Alaska)

Reason # 5: Because a meal cooked under starlight after a day of fishing with your best friend tastes better than that same meal would anywhere else. (Tumalo State Park, Deschutes River, central Oregon)

Reason #6: Because what’s good for salmon and trout rivers is also good for so many of the other things in life we love. (Wild turkeys, American River, Sacramento, California)

Reason #7: Because farmed salmon can’t put a smile like that on a friend’s face. (Barbra Donachy, first king salmon, Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska)

Reason #8: Because we don’t want to live in a world where biodiversity is limited to what can be grown on a farm, raised in a pen, or crammed onto a feedlot. (Sea lions, California North Coast, Bodega Bay, California)

Reason #9: Because girls who grow up fishing with their dads…

…become women who fish with their dads. (Above: Maia Donachy drifting an elk hair caddis in the Deschutes Canyon, central Oregon. Below: Maia with a hoochie-caught silver salmon gorged with herring, Cape Resurrection, Alaska)

And reason #10: Because salmon make a landscape more beautiful.

Top photos: spawning sockeye salmon. Bottom photo: spawning chum salmon.

About Trout Unlimited: For 54 years, TU has been a leader in ensuring that we have cold, clean rivers and streams for generations to come. From Northern California to Alaska’s Tongass Forest, from Bristol Bay to the Appalachian Mountains, TU has been instrumental in getting dams removed from rivers where they do more harm than good, keeping mining and drilling out of our most fragile ecosystems, and protecting trout and salmon forests. At the same time, TU has been dedicated to educating and involving the next generation of environmental stewards – our children and grandchildren. As illustrated above, TU’s efforts benefit much more than trout and salmon. Click here to find out how you can become a member: Trout Unlimited.

Salmon Cheddar Soup with Lobster Mushrooms

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

With or without lobster mushrooms (see photo below), this quick, easy seafood soup is one of our wintertime favorites.

The inspiration for this recipe comes from A. J. McClane’s excellent cookbook, North American Fish Cookery. McClane’s original recipe is sans mushrooms and calls for lobster, but the basic stock – milk and cheddar cheese seasoned with nutmeg – lends itself to a variety of innovations. The first time we created this dish we substituted grilled steelhead for the lobster. Other iterations have featured broiled or grilled salmon, smoked salmon, and Alaska shrimp. In fact, we’ve never used lobster, and although freshly ground nutmeg remains a must in our soup, we usually spice it up with the addition of ground smoked chipotles or other peppers and smoked sea salt. Most recently we made this soup with our own canned smoked red salmon, lobster mushrooms and red bell pepper.

Ready for soup: a lobster mushroom, nutmeg, our own blend of smoked chipotles and other seasoning, and a jar of smoked Copper River red salmon.

Salmon Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

¼ to ½ pound smoked salmon, grilled salmon, raw salmon, lobster or shrimp cut into ½-inch chunks. (If using raw seafood, allow for a few minutes cooking time in soup till done.)
1¼ cups lobster mushrooms cut into chunks slightly smaller than the seafood. (Optional) These particularly mushrooms work well because they have a firm texture, nice color, and mild flavor.
Part of a red bell pepper cut into thin strips – 4 to 5 strips per serving. Sauté until tender and set aside.
1/4 cup olive oil or butter
3 tbsp flour, as a thickening agent. Rice flour works especially well, but all-purpose flour is fine.
3 cups milk
1¾ cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground smoked chipotle (optional)
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt or smoked sea salt
paprika (finishing garnish – a dash or 2 per serving)

Directions

Place olive oil or butter in a large pot over medium heat.
Add lobster mushrooms, a little salt, a couple grinds of pepper and sauté for about two minutes.
Lower heat and vigorously stir in flour. Then add milk and seasonings, stirring until mixture begins to thicken and becomes hot. Do not allow to boil.
Stir in seafood and cheddar cheese. Give the soup a taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.
Serve piping hot, garnished with a few strips of bell pepper and a dash or two of paprika.

We enjoyed this soup with homemade biscuits.

Chai Crème Brûlée for Two

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Easy to create, this crème brûlée features a rich custard flavored with vanilla and chai tea and is sealed with a crunchy caramelized top.

We give careful thought before adding any new item to our kitchen. Does the tool merit the space it will take up in Bandon’s galley or in the kitchen of our Arctic home? Will it be durable? Is it practical?

For the past few years, both of us have been eyeing a butane torch – the perfect niche tool for toasting a couple of homemade marshmallows, singeing meringue pie tips, and of course, for creating the perfect crème brûlée.

For most people, the addition of an item such as a kitchen torch means driving to a local store and picking one out along with the necessary fuel. For us, getting a canister of butane out to bush Alaska means purchasing a haz-mat certificate and having the item sent by cargo flight out here because the post office doesn’t ship hazardous materials via airplane.

Last night, the torch came out of the box, was fueled up, and put into service to finish a dessert that we and our guests couldn’t get enough of – chai crème brûlée. For this recipe, we began with a traditional crème brûlée custard recipe and infused it with the mildly spicy, sweet flavors of loose leaf chai tea and vanilla paste. The resulting dessert was more complex and flavorful than typical crème brûlées. Using our new torch so that our guests and we could caramelize the tops of the custard just before serving, this turned out to be the best crème brûlée we and our guests had ever had.

Chai Creme Brulee for Two

Ingredients

1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup granulated sugar
tiny pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
1 tbsp loose chai tea
3 large egg yolks
2 tsp granulated sugar for topping

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place an oven rack in the slightly lower than center position.
Whisk milk, heavy whipping cream, sugar, salt, vanilla paste and chai tea in a medium pot over medium heat. Whisk until mixture steams and almost boils. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
Strain cream mixture to remove tea leaves.
Whisk eggs in a medium bowl. Stir in cream mixture to eggs one tablespoon at a time until the egg mixture is warmed. Once mixture is warmed, increase addition of cream mixture to 1/4 cup at a time. This will prevent eggs from cooking and scrambling.
Pour mixture into two 4-ounce ramekins.
Set ramekins in a baking dish. Pour enough hot water to reach halfway up the ramekins.
Bake uncovered in preheated oven until desserts are softly set, about 45 minutes. The centers will jiggle.
Remove baking dish with ramekins from oven and let desserts come to room temperature while in water bath on counter.
Chill ramekins in refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.
Right before serving, sprinkle 1 teaspoon granulated sugar evenly on each dessert.
Use a kitchen torch to slightly brown and caramelize the granulated sugar. Let cool for ten minutes and serve.

Waste Not Want Not Potato Bread

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

We don’t normally buy instant mashed potatoes, but when friends offered us a couple packets at the end of their Alaska camping trip last summer, we came up with a good use for them.

The packets of instant mashed red potatoes remained in our pantry for over a year – until the other day when I was thumbing through a friend’s bread machine recipe book and saw that potato bread could be easily made with instant mashed potatoes. Let the experimenting begin!

The potato bread recipes I came across included lard, butter, milk and salt. Since the pre-mixed potato packet already had many of these ingredients, I adjusted the recipe to fit packet at hand. If you make this recipe with plain instant potatoes, I’d recommend the addition of more butter and salt.

Mashed Potato Bread

Ingredients

1 cup instant mashed potatoes
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp yeast

Directions

Rehydrate instant potatoes according to directions.
Mix in butter.
Place potato mixture, milk, water, flour, sugar and yeast into bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Turn on dough setting.
Turn out dough onto floured surface.
Split dough into two pieces and knead into loaf shapes that will fit into loaf pans.
Bake in oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Loaves will sound hollow when tapped.