When Harry met supper: A wizardly cookbook

As far as Dinah Bucholz is concerned, food is almost as much a character in the Harry Potter books as Harry or Hermione.

That is what led the Philadelphia resident to write The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, recently published by Adams Media.

"I got into Harry Potter in my early 20s," Bucholz said. "I was enthralled by the first sentence. I got drawn in and became obsessed with the series. You feel like you are in that world. One of the reasons is the food."

Bucholz said the feast scene after Harry arrives at Hogwarts in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling, made a big impression on her. Not only did the dishes magically become piled with food, but Harry had never seen so much food he liked in one place before. There was roast beef, roast chicken, boiled potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and peppermint humbugs.

Every one of those dishes appears in the cookbook. There are also recipes for such things as knickerbocker glory, a parfaitlike dessert with Jell-O, whipped cream, and custard that Harry eats on Dudley's birthday, as well as delicious pumpkin pasties, sweet pumpkin hand pies.

And of course, the book wouldn't be complete without a recipe for Harry's favorite dessert, treacle tart. Treacle, it turns out, is a sweet syrup used in other recipes as well, including treacle fudge, which was sugary and delicious but so hard to stir that by the end you might wish you had Mrs. Weasley's wand to do it for you.

For anyone who is getting into the mood to see the new movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to be released Friday, cooking from this book could be a great place to start.

The recipes are easy to follow and will take you to places like the great hall at Hogwarts and Hagrid's hut. Have some beef casserole, minus the talons, for dinner before heading to the theater. Or pack a few rock cakes in your pocket in case you get hungry during the show. And don't forget the jam tarts or the acid drops for the after party.

Bucholz said there were often times while she was reading that she could not imagine what was being eaten. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, for example, there is a scene in which Ron tries to talk Hermione into eating by tempting her with spotted dick. It sounded strange to Bucholz, as it probably did to many Americans reading the book. But it turns out it isn't as strange as it sounds.

"Dick is just an old-fashioned word for pudding," Bucholz said.

The cookbook explains that this old-fashioned Victorian pudding is usually made with suet, the hard fat that encases beef kidneys, but Bucholz eliminates that ingredient and substitutes butter. The description spotted comes from the fact that the pudding is full of raisins. Bucholz also adds currants or cranberries to her rendition.

"I was amazed at how many things she didn't make up that Americans think she made up because we haven't heard of it," Bucholz said.

Bucholz said she had been drawn to food since she was a child, when her mother cooked everything from scratch for her and her 12 siblings and allowed Bucholz to experiment in the kitchen as much as she wanted. There were plenty of books around her childhood home in New York's Rockland County that wove stories around food. She used to dream about having afternoon tea.

So it is quite fitting that she would write this book, essentially a British cookbook full of Harry Potter trivia and tie-ins to the characters and plots.

Driving home one day after doing errands, Bucholz said, the words "Harry Potter Cookbook" flashed into her head. She spent the next few hours going through the first Harry Potter book, writing down all the food that is mentioned. But her initial excitement was met with skepticism. All of the agents she queried were worried about copyright issues.

Finally she contacted a law firm to ask for advice. It turned out it wouldn't be too hard after all. The firm wrote back explaining that all she had to do was add the word unofficial to the title and put a disclaimer on the front cover. Once she had the letter she included it with her queries and that was that - she found an agent. That was two years after the idea first came to her.

Bucholz, who has no professional cooking experience, chose to include only the foods that actually exist in British culture, and left out the ones Rowling made up, such as butterbeer.

She researched the recipes in British cookbooks and online, and then wrote and recipe-tested for six months, making three to four items a day while her kids were in school. And when they got home there was always something for them to try, including fizzy sherbet pouches, Christmas pudding, meringues, and lemon drops. They liked the candy and ice-cream offerings the best.

Because Bucholz keeps kosher, and because she didn't want to leave any important recipes out, she worked with chef Chris Koch, who developed the recipes for the non-kosher entries including tender roast loin of pork with variations - apple blossom-glazed or bourbon-glazed with peaches.

There were some dishes, like the goulash, for which she was able to substitute a tofu sour cream when she tried it out (to avoid mixing dairy with the meat), though the actual recipe calls for real sour cream.

Before Bucholz became a cookbook writer, she was an English teacher, then an editor for a business publisher, and then a stay-at-home mom with four kids, Elisheva, 11, Sarah, 10, Eliyahu, 8, and Toby, 5.

She plans to continue to write and is already working on another literary cookbook, which will be character-driven, of course, dish by dish.

Makes 6 pasties

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For the pastry crust:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks

3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into chunks

4 to 6 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:

1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

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1. Place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Scatter the butter and shortening over the flour mixture. Pulse about 15 times until the mixture resembles coarse yellow meal with no white powdery bits remaining.

2. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle four tablespoons of cold water over the mixture. Toss the mixture together with a spatula until it starts to clump together. If it's too dry, add more water one tablespoon at a time - better too wet than too dry. Gather the dough into a ball and pat it into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least one hour.

3. Combine the pumpkin, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Mix well. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the dough 1/8 inch thick. Use a saucer or an upside-down cereal bowl to cut out 6-inch circles.

4. Put 2 to 3 tablespoons of filling in the center of each circle of dough. Moisten the edges with water, fold the dough over the filling, and crimp with a fork to seal edges (we used our fingers). Cut slits to release steam. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 30 minutes or until browned.

Per pastie: 288 calories, 3 grams protein, 33 grams carbohydrates, 12 grams sugar, 16 grams fat, 25 milligrams cholesterol, 168 milligrams sodium, 2 grams dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 64 pieces

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Cooking spray to grease pan

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 stick butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons black treacle or dark molasses or blackstrap molasses

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla

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1. Grease an eight-inch square pan and set aside. Combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, heavy cream, treacle, and cream of tartar in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the butter is melted and the ingredients are combined. Wash down the sides of the pot with a pastry brush dipped in hot water if sugar crystals form. Use a candy thermometer to see that the temperature reaches 240 degrees.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Allow the bubbles to subside and the mixture to cool slightly, about five minutes (you won't need the thermometer anymore). Beat or stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture loses its gloss and is very thick, about 15 to 20 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. You can use a piece of plastic wrap and the palm of your hand to do this.

3. Cool completely before cutting into one-inch squares.

Per Piece: 45 calories, trace protein, 7 grams carbohydrates, 6 grams sugar, 2 grams fat, 6 milligrams cholesterol, 13 milligrams sodium, no dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 8 servings

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3 tablespoons vegetable oil (divided use)

2 pounds chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 onion, finely chopped

2 ribs celery, finely chopped

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Two 14-ounce cans chicken broth

One 10-ounce package mushrooms, chopped

3 tablespoons paprika

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 sweet red pepper, seeded and chopped

1/2 cup sour cream

Egg noodles, for serving

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1. Heat one tablespoon of the oil in a Dutch oven or a wide pot. Sear the meat in batches over high heat on both sides until crispy brown, about four minutes per side. Transfer the batches to a large plate. Heat the remaining two tablespoons of oil and add the onions and celery, cooking over medium-high heat until softened, scraping up the frond (browned bits), about five minutes. Add the flour and toss to combine. Pour the chicken broth while stirring constantly. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbling.

2. Add the mushrooms, paprika, tomato paste, and the browned meat along with its accumulated juices. Bring the stew to a simmer and continue to simmer for 11/2 hours (we added an extra half hour to the cooking time). Add the red pepper and cook 30 minutes more. Remove from the heat.

3. Whisk the sour cream with a half cup of the cooking liquid, then stir it into the goulash. Serve the goulash over buttered egg noodles.

Per serving: 503 calories, 27 grams protein, 26 grams carbohydrates, 4 grams sugar, 33 grams fat, 104 milligrams cholesterol, 533 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber.EndText