Croque Danielle

Finally I have invented a signature sandwich!

Readers know my love of combining jarlsberg and parmesan, so inspired by a friend's G+post,  I have used them in a sandwich.  Here are the ingredients:

• a layer of sliced jarlsberg
• 2 thin slices of ham
• Fig butter / jam ( I got mine from TJs) spread generously between the ham slices
• Grated Parmesan

Build those layers between two slices of bread (today I tried sourdough) and cook ala a grilled cheese

It is delicious!  Make your own variations and post about them.

Kale Chips -- Kidney Diet

January 2014-  I am adding this to my 'kidney diet' list, and have posted updated oven directions.


The first thing I wanted to try making with my new Nesco American Harvest dehydrator (picked because it was $30 and had good reviews) was kale chips.

For those unfamiliar with the snack, kale chips are made of baked or dried kale which forms a crunchy papery texture.  Traditionally T and I make these by tossing a bunch of kale with olive oil and baking at 300F for ~3min, but we have a 50% burn rate (the progression is: wilted and gross, chips!, burned byond use) so I wanted to try them in the dehydrator. . .

But first a handy kale tip!  
The kale I bought looked very wilted, so I treated it like flowers, cut an inch off the stems and put them in a vase, and poof, perfect kale.  I recommend this as a pre-step for recipes where kale will be eaten raw.

Kale chips work best with "Dino kale" (the kind in the above picture) which has one central vein.
Prepping the kale:

1. Wash the leaves
2. Using a sharp knife cut out the large central vein, and then bisect the two leaf halves to quarter the leaf.

For the oven:

1. Toss 1 bunch with 1tbspn olive oil\
2. Sprinkle on 1/16th tspn salt
3. You can make variants by adding black pepper and lemon juice as well
4. Spread out on racks in a 220F oven and leave for 20min

For the dehydrator:

1. Optionally blanch the kale (see below)
2. Lay the pieces out in a single layer on the trays
3. Check every 30min (your time may vary from my results below) and be sure to taste the kale when you think it is done.  There is a point where the kale looks dry but still has a chewy mouth feel and needs an extra 20min

My first batch of kale chips had a much stronger and bitter taste than the oven variety, so I decided to do a side beside comparison between untreated and blanched kale. To blanch the kale I put the cut pieces in a pot with 1 inch of boiling water and covered it for 2min as a sort of lazy steam.

Here are the two types laid out int he dehydrator:

 
















And here are the finished products: 

The blanched kale has a sweeter and less bitter taste, and a much prettier dark color (not that you can tell from this crazy yellow photo), so I recommend the step.  I think these will be very good sprayed with a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt (our Misto is broken and I don't want to drench them, so I can't do the +olive oil test until I buy a new one).  I feel like the taste over-all is more kale-y and less chip-like than the oven variety which fried a little in its oil coating, but will probably still preferentially make these since it felt less hands on, and there was less burning.



A final note on time:  The unblanched kale took 2 hours and the blanched took 1 hour, so you really save on dehydrator time by blanching, which means it's a good option if you want to crank these out for a party or something.

Masala Chai

This recipe comes from a friend from my job at U of Pitt, but I have been adjusting the levels to fit my taste.

Ingredients:

• 40g piece of ginger, sliced
• 3 tbspns Cardamom pods (crushed open) or seeds
• 2 tbspns black peppercorns
• 4 sticks (15g) cinnamon
• 20 cloves
• 15 allspice berries
• 12 star anise
• 5-8 heaping tbspns loose leaf black tea (the cheap bulk kind you can get at Indian grocers)

Steps:

1. Place 10c of water and all the spices (but NOT the tea) on to boil and let boil for 30-45min covered
2. Turn off the heat and let sit covered 5 min
3. Add the tea and let sit another 3-5 min based on desired strength
4. Seive into a storage container.
5. Add desired sweetner (I use 1/2 cup sugar for the ~8cups of tea I end up with)
6. Store in refrigerator

When desirous of a cup of masala chai mix 1:1 with milk or favorite milk alternative in a mug and microwave until warm.  During cold Pittsburgh winters I would find I could make this on a Sunday afternoon and have chai for all week long.

Tea Strength Notes:
After water loss during boiling, you have 8cups (~72oz) liquid.  At the rule of 1 teaspoon / 6oz, this is 4tbspn.  The 8tbspn, is for added strength, but with some teas this makes the brew too bitter.  In that case I recommend reducing the amount of leaves.  In general, brew a normal cup of tea wth  the tea you intend to use, and use is to evaluate quantity and brew time.

Spiciness Note:
For a spicier chai increase ginger to 60g and use 3tbspn pepper.

IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE THIS RECIPE PLEASE COMMENT BELOW WITH WHAT FLAVORS YOU FEEL ARE OVER/UNDERREPRESENTED IN THE CHAI.

Easiest Beef Ribs

It's been over a month!
Moving and not having my own kitchen have not been good for this blog, but in another 2 weeks I should be cooking more often.

In the mean time here is a recipe for those of you who like ribs:  Steps 2 and 3 are optional.

1.  start with ribs.  
1. I used beef ribs, and I got them at Whoel Foods pre-seasoned.  You could use any kind and if they don't have a rub I would add some salt, pepper, chilli powder, and brown sugar liberally over the top.
2. Remove the fibrous membrane from the underside.  This can be hard.  Use a knife to cut under it then try and work your fingers beneath in and peel it off. 
3. Leave the ribs uncovered in your fridge overnight or for 1-2 days to dry age them
4. Wrap the ribs in foil.
5. Place the ribs in a 200F over in the morning before work
6. Come home to perfect ribs 10 hours later

Photographic evidence:

Notice that although the collagen has melted and fat has rendered the meat is a bright pink.  In On Food and Cooking McGee says that retaining a bright pink color is the result of a slow and gradual temperature increase that prevents myoglobin from being denatured, and is the hallmark of successful slow cooking.  This is my first time to achieve it, in contrast to all my attempts at cheap sous vide with a slow cooker.  The take home: Water heats the meat too quickly to achieve the effect.

They tasted very nice with a little BBQ sauce.

I want to now try this approach with brisket.

Fig and Carmelized Onion Tarts

Haven't been posting because of no time and no desktop since the move, but wanted I share my first experience using my grandma's Breville Pie Maker.  This is basically a ForemanGrill/ panini press with mini-pie shaped holes.

Typing this on iPhone, so in brief:

Take 4 Large sweet onions and 2tbspns butter.  Slice the Onions and Carmelized them (40 min on simmer with 1 tspn sugar until brown and translucent)

Meanwhile roll out pie dough of choice and cut figs...

Add 2 tspn balsamIc vinegar to finished onions' then divide between 4 pies and top with quartered figs (~1 per pie)

10 min in pie maker or hot oven, the let cool and solidify.
Optionally top with crumbled blue cheese.

Chicken with Chinese Hot Peppers

Here in Squirrel Hill there is a pretty good Taiwanese restaurant called Rose Tea Cafe, and on their menu is my favorite dish of all time: Chicken with Chinese Hot Pepper

I have always wished I could cook Asian food, which is my favorite continent of cuisine, and I have been eating out too much, but still craving this dish, so i thought I would give it a try.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thighs, boned and cut into ~ 1 inch piece, you know, like in Chinese food.
• ~1-1.5 lbs Chinese green peppers, sliced into thin strips
• 1 bunch green onion, chopped
• Sauce (~3tbspn soy sauce, 2 tbspn rice vinegar, 1 tspn corn starch, 2 tspn sugar, dash sesame oil)

These were the peppers I bought from the local Korean grocery.  They had a sign reading "Chinese peppers" but the "hot" was conspicuously lacking.  Not to spoil the ending, but this lack of heat plagued the dish.  So good news if you don't like spicy food:  you can make this recipe and not worry!  Bad news for me, because I was missing the constant runny nose and vague sense of mouth fire that I crave. 

<insert me weeping a single tear>

The longest part of the dish was seeding and pithing the peppers, and then slicing them thin.  It is imperative to set up a sort of mis-en-place(sp?) involving the pre-mixed sauce, chicken, and onion/pepper mix.

Ready?

Heat a pan (or wok, definitely a wok--see below) on high heat and add enough oil to coat the bottom at a temperature where the oil will run freely.  Continue to heat until the oil begins to smoke.

Add the chicken pieces and stir frantically for 3min over high heat, then remove to a serving bowl.

Add a little more oil, then the peppers/onions and stir for ~5 min

Re-add the chicken followed by the sauce and stir for another 1 min, or until the sauce is absorbed and cooked down.

TaDa!

Here is the dish, it was very good although lacking in spice:

Also, here is my poor frying pan (our wk is back in CA):

Any ideas on a better pepper to use?  Maybe if I just include some of the seed I could boost the spiciness?

I have a second package of peppers in the fridge for another try.

Insalata Caprese

Unlike most posts here, which I write so that I can remember how to make food, this post in being written to share my favorite recipe.  I will never forget how to make it because a) it is dead simple and b) I make it 2-3x/month year round.

Insalata caprese is a 3 ingredient, uncooked, dish which means that it is ALL ABOUT ingredient quality.  Flavorless, unripe tomatoes will ruin it, and actual buffalo mozzarella takes it to the next level (for a while our local Costco sold giant tubs of authentic mozzarella buffala for $12.)

Ok, so you have assembled your perfect ingredients which are tomatoes, ovoline mozzarella, and basil leaves.  here is what you do with them:

• Slice the tomatoes thickly
• Put salt and pepper directly on the tomatoe (to taste)
• Slice the ovoline mozzarella more thinly, or in thick slices but cut in half, and place on top.  I usually do 1 ovoline per 2-3 tomatoes
• drizzle olive oil over this, or, if you have a Misto sprayer you can use that for an even coating
• top with a basil leaf

Look at that deliciousness!

Lentils and Rice with Salad

As summer turns our kitchen into a 95F sweat-box I will be cooking less, and you will see a lot more recipes based around not turning on the stove.

This is my attempt to re-create a dish I had at Aladdin's Eatery in Squirrel Hill.
The dish is a mix of rice, lentils and fried onions, topped with a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes.  The base makes enough for leftovers, but I assembled the salad fresh each time.

Part one, the base: (4-6 servings)

• Put 2 cups of brown rice in a rice cooker along with 2 chicken bouillon cubes, the juice of one lemon and 2 tbspns of olive oil (plus the recommended water for your cooker)
• Open and rinse a packages of Trader Joe's precooked lentils.
• Mix all these together, along with ~ 1 cup fried onions-- we bought ours at a middle eastern grocer, but I think you could also substitute sauteed onions made at home

Part two, the salad (2 servings)

• Take 1/2 a package of cherry tomatoes (1.5 cups)
• Add 3 Persian cucumbers, sliced
• Mix with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil to taste

Then you just put everything together like in this picture:

Without the bouillon this is a vegetarian dish (replace the water with vegetable stock for the rice).  I found it very tasty and filling.

Bruschetta

I made this as a quick lunch this weekend and wanted to note it down.  I am calling it bruschetta, but I think this may be a lie or an unforgivable abuse of grammar/the Italian language.  With the summer heat approaching I need a library of quick, cold, but satisfying meals.

Step One:  Toast 2 slices bread (optionally brush with olive oil first)
Step Two: make bruschetta by mixing these ingredients with salt and pepper to taste:

• Two tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 cup sweet onion finely diced
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, cut as fine as you can

Step 3: Layer sliced ovaline mozzarella and generous portions of bruschetta on the toast.  The above amount does well for 2 people, with the toasts cut in half for 2 bruschetta each.

Caesar Salad

A recipe for salad!  Ok, really a recipe for dressing, with a serving suggestion, but caesar salad is one of my favorite summer foods.

This dressing recipe is cobbled together from a few sources, and simplified down for speed:

1. Croutons:  I made mine with old bread set in the oven at 350 for 30min and then lightly fried in olive oil ala Alton Brown's suggestion
2. Dressing:  Put all the following together and hit with an immersion blender
1. 2 eggs well washed.  They can also be boiled for 1min (aka coddled) if you are really worried about salmonella.  This will leave most of the egg raw, but sterilize the shells at the expense of losing some whites.
2. 1 lemon's worth of juice
3. 1/4 cup olive oil
4. 1 small tin of anchovies
5. some pepper (to taste)
3. Lettuce: whole hearts of romaine
4. Cheese: Parmesan (I used my endless supply of Costco Romano)

To assemble I drizzled some dressing on the leaves (the consensus was that <1tbspn covered a LOT of lettuce-- this stuff is strongly flavored).  I then sprinkled 1-2tbpns cheese and 4-5 coutons on top.

I will definitely be making this again, I just wish it kept.

Blueberry IceMilk

Another post sans-picture (thought I will add one the next time I make this)

This is one of the simpler of my attempts at healthy ice creams; which I haven't been wanting to put up until I am satisfied with them.  It is the lower calorie version of my Blueberry Ice Cream.

• 1 cup 2% milk
• 1 cup frozen wild blueberries
• 3 TBSPN powdered milk
• 2 TBSPN sugar

Hit everything with an immersion blender (or normal blender) to mix, I woudl recommend keeping at this for quite a while until it is smooth.  AT that point you have a passable smoothie/soft serve crossover, but you can throw it in an ice cream maker for a thicker product.

This makes 3-4 cups of ice milk and has ~400 calories, and is mostly fruit and milk.

Honey Part-Wheat Bread

I think I have hit upon a good sandwich bread that takes my bread machine can be trusted to make on its own.
The goal was to create something soft and spongey, since my husband does not like dense/cakey whole wheat bread.  I think using 1/3 whole wheat gives a good taste without compromising texture.

A lot of the ratios are basically ripped off from On Food and Cooking, but with honey replacing sugar, and the yeast dialed back because in my bread machine it kept over-rising and collapsing.

1. 300ml warm (37C) water
2. 300g bread flour
3. 150g whole wheat flour
4. 1.5tspn salt (9g)
5. 2 and 1/8 tspn yeast
6. 1 tbspn honey 
7. 1 tbspn veg. oil

Throw everything into a bread machine and bake it on WHITE/BASIC (it will over-rise and the collapse on a wheat/extended rise setting).  This is a 1.5lb/750g loaf.  Also, it is imperative to check the dough ball after 10min which you want to have a smooth and moist texture that is only slightly tacky and holds shape.  The second time I made this I needed to add almost 1/4 cup extra flour due to humidity.

Random Calorie note:  This loaf has something like 1900 calories in it (mostly all from flour) which makes me wonder how store bread can be like 90cal/slice.

Slow Cooker Sous Vide NY Strip

As you may remember from my Ribs post, I have been experimenting with using my slow cooker as a high-maintenance sous vide device.  My previous experiments have focused on long cooks that take advantage of the probe feature on my Hamilton Beach model (it will switch from low or high to warm when the probe hits a temp you enter between 140 and 190F) and the fact that when switched to "warm" with the lid on, the cooker maintains a temp right around 170F.

This time I tried to cook a strip steak to exactly medium rare (130F to 135F) over a period of just an hour, and without using the probe (since it doesn't kick in until 140).  It worked very well, and here are the steps to try at home:

1. I pre-seared the refrigerator cold steaks in a tiny bit of butter for ~30sec a side.  This gives them the malliard-reaction flavor, and On Food and Cooking suggests it can help with killing bacteria, since most bacteria are on meat's surface
1. This is a good point to mention that a lot of people worry about low-temp cooking and bacterial growth.  130F is enough to kill bacteria, but the time required is debatable.  I ignored this issue because my theory was that a medium rare steak cooked on high heat is at 130F in the middle for something like 1minute, but this may not be correct.\
2. Put the steaks in a quart zip lock bag and got out most but not all of the air (because I am not very good at that part)
3. Then I filled my slow cooker 1/2 way with tepid water and put it on "high", with a thermometer in the water, before slowly pouring in boiling water.  Basically I mixed boiling and tepid water until i got a temperature of ~120F
4. At this point I added the bagged steaks to the bath, put on the lid, and set my thermometer to alarm at 133F.
5. When the alarm went off (which took ~20min) I switched the slow cooker to warm, removed the lid, and set a timer for 30min.
6. Checking in 5 minutes, I saw the temp had fallen to 128F, so I put it on high and replaced the lid.
7. In 2 more minutes it was at 131 and climbing, so I just took the lid off, but left it on high.
8. This seemed to stabilize, though I continued to check.
9. After the 30min was up, I took out the bad and let it rest 10min before slicing

The steak was a perfect medium rare (author's note:  After re-reading OF&C, I believe my steak only reached rare, as the red juices had been expelled from the meat, but it was still somewhat translucent.) across the entire width and very juicy.  I liked this, but to my husband it tasted "raw" (most trad. cooked steaks have a gradient of doneness that effects texture)

This procedure was much more time consuming than the ribs which had a wide temperature window, but if you're in the kitchen prepping other food anyway, it isn't too bad.  I would certainly recommend it as a way to taste a sous vide steak without shelling out a lot of money.  For fun, you can also do a version where you hold it at 130-135F for 2+ hours, which dries it out more but breaks down the muscle fibers.  This is I think the more classic method (maybe someone can comment on this) but I find it a bit textureless and dry.

Sadly, I do not have a good photo, but I will update the post with one next time I do this.  :-(

Healthy Banana Ice Cream

This is the first in a series of forays into developing some easy recipes for ice-cream that is not actively unhealthy. . . .

• 1 cup milk ( My intention was to use 2%, but I accidentally grabbed skim from the fridge)
• 2 medium frozen bananas (the liquid level rose to 1.75cups)
• 2tspn vanilla
• 2tbspn sugar

I blended everything with an immersion blender and the volume went from 1.75C to 2.25C, meaning there was a lot of aeration.  I then poured the mix right into my ice cream maker, and it further almost doubled in volume during churning.  

So I ended up with 4 cups of ice cream, that is maybe 50% air.  With minimal sugar, low (or in this case, no) fat, and a serving of fruit.  My rough count of the calories is 400cal for the whole thing assuming I had used 2%.

Taste:

Very light and fluffy

Strong banana flavor

Some ice crystals noticeable

Good with cocoa nibs on top

For next time:

Use 2% milk for some fat content

Add cocoa for a chocolate-banana flavor and to further disrupt ice formation.

Upcoming flavors:

Strawberry

Peanut Butter

(almost vegetarian) Lasagna

I used my second batch of Fresh Pasta to make Lasagna.  First let me say that my "brilliant" plan to try and make a more "authentic" fresh pasta using 1/2 bread flour instead of 100% semolina flour resulted in me losing 2 hours of my life.  The dough had this extra spring that meant it took the length of an entire film to roll it out, and the process involved me pushing down with my entire weight on the rolling pin.  So from this point on, it's 100% semolina flour for me.

3 eggs of pasta yielded enough for a 2 layer lasagna.  The process is exactly the same as the other page, but I stored it in a bag in the freezer with extra semolina flour in-between each layer at the end, and never boiled it.

The rest of this recipe is very un-exact. . .

I took 3 yellow onions and a bag of mushrooms (this is a very technical term for something like 1.5-2lbs, aka what I shoved in a bag at Whole Foods).  Dropped them in my food processor on slice and then cooked them down with butter, salt, and pepper.

Next I sliced and cooked 6 zucchini and ~8 carrots, in the same fashion, but for less time.

At this point I added the sliced meat of 4 boned chicken thighs, which ended up being a completely irrelevant amount of meat.  Finding the chicken in this lasagna is like hunting for the baby in a King Cake.

Everything was mixed together in a bowl, with 1.5 jars of tomato sauce and dried oregano and basil.

Finally in my roasting pan I layered noodles (uncooked), skim milk ricotta (a thin layer -- I used 1 container in my 2 layer lasagna), and ~1inch of the veggie/sauce/meat mix.  Atop the last layer of noodles I put a thin film of sauce (i had been scooping the veggie mix with a slotted spoon) and then covered it with Ramano cheese before baking at 375 for 1 hour.

Why Romano you ask?  Because you can buy something like 3lbs of Romano cheese for $10 at Costco in a big block and I was out of mozzarella.  Handy kitchen tip:  When refrigerated Romano is put through the shredder on a food processor you get shredded cheese, but when frozen Romano is put through the same shredder you get finely ground cheese.  In this way you can imitate both types of high-end Parmesan at like 1/10th the price.

Here is a photo:

P.S. this feels like my most surly post to date.

Ossobuco

At our local butcher's (Salem's) they had veal shoulder for $4 a lb. (3-4 lb shoulder) so I had one cross-cut for me, and decided to make an Ossobuco-like dish in my slow cooker.  I did feel a bit bad about getting veal, but as I have a confidence that the small local farms they are sourcing from treat the animals with respect, I decided to go for it.  (Here's a great article on them).

I wanted to do somethign quick and one-step, so I skipped gremolata in favor of incorporating garlic an parsley into the dish, and I was out of white wine.  here is what went into the slow cooker:

• 4lbs. of cross cut veal; dredge in flour and lightly browned in a hot pan with olive oil
• 2 red onions, 9 med. carrots, 10 garlic, 7 celery; all cut this and sauted in the pan next with some parsley, salt, and black pepper
• 1 small can of tomato paste and a box of beef broth (~4 cups) used to deglaze the pan

I left this overnight in the fridge, then started the slow cooker before work (8:30am).  My nice Hamilton Beach model has a probe, which I stuck int he liquid, and told the machine to switch from "low" to "warm" at 170F.  By the time my husband checked it at 4:30pm, it was on "warm" but had risen another 20 degrees to 190F.

He turned it off and let it sit till I got home, so it would not get hotter.  ((If you do not have a slow cooker with probe control, I would suggest making this on a day when you can be home and monitor it, or else just put it on "warm" to start.  Slow cookers always run too hot, and if meat gets to boiling, it really suffers.))

This veal is hands-down THE most tender beef I have ever had, including restaurants.  I would call the texture perfect for a braise.

The flavor, while good, had 3 flaws:

1. It lacked acid (I wish I'd had that wine!)
2. The broth was too dilute/watery
3. The celery flavor was overpowering compared to the garlic and parsley

So next time I am going to use 2 cups beef broth instead of 4, along with 1 cup white wine.  I am going to use only 3 stalks of celery, down from 7, and lastly I am going to saute garlic and lemon peel and fresh parsley after the other vegetables, but before de-glazing, and then leave it in the fridge until i come one, to be mixed in right before eating.

Sadly, with the amount of leftovers, my quest for perfectly ossobuco must wait a while.  In the meantime I am going to try and fix the acidity by adding some lemon juice the next time I eat it.

Thoughts?

Fresh Pasta

I bought semolina flour to make fresh pasta.  This is somewhat ironic because traditionally fresh pasta is made with bread flour in Italy, and semolina is only used for dried pasta, but whatever. . .

I started with a basic recipe I found online:
100g semolina
1 egg
pinch of salt

From there I basically focused on getting the feel of well-developed dough. (smooth and elastic).  To add some color I threw in 1/8 cup powdered spinach (made by putting frozen spinach in my coffee grinder).  Which necessitated adding a lot more flour.  After about 2 minutes of kneading I let it set under a damp towel for 30 min, then I kneaded it another 5min and started rolling it out.

Rolling pasta is a pain in the ass.  It seems like no matter home much you roll, you can always divide it in 2 and roll it thinner.  Even after going as thin as I could imagine I still ended up with rather chunky pasta that took abnormally long to cook.  Then when I cut it into fettuccine-like strips, they were uneven and it stuck to itself.  This became a huge project.  Eventually I got it all into a container with some semolina flour to keep it from sticking, and that evening boiled it.  I thought it would be 2 people's worth of pasta, but it was easily 4 people's worth.  The green color was beautiful, and I really liked the consistency, which reminded me of what I used to buy at The Pasta Shop in Berkeley.

I am going to try this again to make uncolored lasagna pieces (which should be easier and less time consuming) and then to make ravioli colored by beet juice.  If I still enjoy the process at that point I will be investing in a $25 hand crank pasta machine before I do noodles again.

I am sorry that this post has less info about the details of the cooking process, but all the times (kneading, setting, boiling) seemed very subjective and specific to my case.  My advice for anyone making pasta at home is this:

1. Don't buy semolina at the grocery store.  it is a ripoff.  I got 6 lbs. of Bob's Red Mill semolina for $12 off Amazon
2. Mix the egg, salt, and other wet ingredients with a form in the middle of the flour and then gently incorporate bits of flour at a time.  Whole mixing and kneading try for a smoother, not tacky, but not dry mix.  Achieve this by adding water and flour in small amounts to correct.
3. When rolling the pasta use LIBERAL: amounts of flour on the pin and the surface.  Don't worry about using too much.
4. Boil the pasta in a lot of water, and check the taste every minute or so, till you are happy with the result.

Here is a photo of the finished product after being sauteed in a little butter and Parmesan with leftover brussels sprouts:

With Sponge Cake, the Devil is in the Details

I made a sponge cake, which for those not in the know, is a cake who's only form of aeration/rising comes from beating eggs, and which contains no fat such as shortening or butter.

On Food and Cooking lists the appropriate ratios for a sponge cake to be (by weight):
100 parts flour,  225 parts egg, 155 parts sugar.
In Fannie Farmer there was a recipe with 1 cup flour, 5 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 tbspn lemon juice, 1/4tsp salt, which is approximately 100, 212, 160.

I decided to make half this recipe (1 8-inch pan), but used 3 eggs so I had a ratio of 100, 250, 160.  I followed the instructions and the cake came out springy, but too thin.  So then I said to myself: "Danielle, you should make a second one!"

I set to make a list of things that might have gone wrong (and for some reason didn't notice the obvious excess of egg). This was my list:

1. I greased the pan (apparently with sponge and angel food you don't so that it acts as a lattice/support for the cake to "climb").
2. My new cake pans I bought are dark colored (light is better for even cooking).-- I can't change this.
3. My sugar was too granular / not fine enough.
4. The folding order in the recipe seemed sub-optimal (egg whites into yolks, then flour into all)

OK, here's my new recipe for a single 8-inch round:

Put 1/2 cup sugar in a coffee grinder or food processor and grind the the consistency of corn starch.

Beat the yolks of 3 eggs with 1.5 tspn lemon juice, add 3/8 cup sugar~, and continue to beat until creamy and pale, then set aside.

Whisk 3 egg whites until foamy, add salt followed by remaining 1/8th cup sugar, and beat until stiff peaks have just formed.

Sift .5 cup cake flour over the egg yolks and fold in slowly.

Then fol in the egg whites, and scoop into an ungreased 8-inch spring form cake pan.

Bake at 325F for 25min.

The new recipe was obviously fluffier when layered into the pan.  In the picture of the slice below, the first attempt is the bottom, and the second is the top.  Not only does the new recipe give more volume, everyone agreed it tasted MUCH moister.  

For those curious about the frosting and filling, they are made from stuff in my fridge.  I had some failed strawberry jam (forgot the pectin).  i put it between the layers and then mixed the remainder with mascarpone cheese and whipping cream on high in my kitchenaid.  It was quite yummy, even though I ran out and so it looks a bit sad..

For Next Time:

Make both 8-inch rounds in one 5 egg recipe, matching all ingredients to exactly 100, 225, 155.

Formulate a low-fat ricotta and fresh berry frosting with minimal sugar.

Buy and use an oven thermometer.

Kettle Corn

I love kettle corn, but often find it hard to make.  Tonight it came out PERFECT, so I want to record the details:

In a deep lidded pot add enough oil to thinly cover the bottom, and one popcorn kernel.
Heat on high until that kernel pops.
At this point add an equal volume of sugar as the oil and twice the volume of popcorn kernels.  Begin to stir immediately, still on high until popping becomes established (wait for 4-5 kernels to pop).
When this happens turn the heat to very low, cover the pot and shake rapidly until popping slows to <1 pop / 2 seconds.  Turn off the heat and shake for a few more seconds, then dump the kettle corn into a bowl and stir until the sugar mix dries (~1 min).  Sprinkle on salt.

enjoy.

P.S. I need to get back to taking photos before I eat things.

Blueberry Ice Cream

Ok, this ice cream maker could be deadly. . .

Tonight I made fresh blueberry ice cream:

1 C heavy cream
1 C frozen wild blueberries (blended)
1/3 C sugar
3 TBS milk powder

It was very good and rich, but was a bit too sweet for my taste, and not airy enough.
The airyness is likely because I usually let my mix sit in the freezer for 30min to an hour before puttign it in the ice cream maker, but due to the berries being frozen, it was already almost smoothie consistency by the time I got it into the machine.  I do want to experience with lightly whipping the cream before adding other ingredients to produce a very aerated ice cream in the future.

Also, based on nutrition info there were 800 calories in the cream, 80 in the blueberries, and 250 in the sugar.  The ice cream was good, but not THAT much better than  a blueberry smoothie (which I usually make as blueberries, 2% milk, and a frozen banana).  I would like to try a "healthy" recipe with half the cream and sugar, some more berries, and a little plain milk.  Maybe this will happen next week.  Also, i want to try and make a chocolate banana vegan ice cream using almond milk and frozen banana, and more alcoholic ice cream, and an apple cider sorbet. . .  ok it is too hot in here and I like ice cream too much.

Stout Ice Cream and Cake

For St. Patrick's Day I went and filled a growler with "Chocolate Cherry Stout" over at East End Brewing Co., but with only two people drinking, ended up with 1/2 of it left.  My apartment is already 90F at night, which has turned my thought to home-made ice cream, so the following was the logical conclusion. . .

The Cake:
I modified a cake recipe from Fannie Farmer to replace the chocolate with cocoa powder, (as I did not have chocolate and I read in On Food and Cooking that replacing flour volumes with other flour-like substances can help cakes by reducing gluten content) and the water with stout.

•  Cream together 1/4 lb. butter and 1.5 C superfine sugar
• It is important for the sugar to be super-fine for maximum aeration.  Instead of buying it, I just put normal sugar in a coffee grinder.
• Add 2 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla, mix
• Mix together 1 1/3C all-purpose flour, 2/3C cocoa powder, 1.5tsp baking soda, .5tsp salt; then blend it all in
• Pour in 8oz ice cold stout and mix thoroughly

The recipe is for 2 8-inch cake pans and I tried making it in 1 11in cake, which has 2 negative effects.  Firstly the cake seemed dry due to the extra 15min cook time, and secondly it fell almost an inch from the peak of its rising.  Note to self: buy 8in cake pans.  Still it was quite delicious, and the dryness helped it absorb ice cream. . .

The Ice Cream
This was a completely made-up recipe based on two figures from On Food and Cooking:  that Ice Cream should have ~ 18% fat content, and 15% sugar content.  Here's what I was trying for:

• 1 C heavy cream (36%fat)
• 1 C Stout (this was the main flavoring, and replaced whole milk)
• 3/8 C sugar
• 3 TBS powdered milk (This is the amount needed to reconstitute 1 C milk
• 2 TBS cocoa (I thought chocolate flavor would complement the cake)

Instead, I accidentally put in ~ 1.5 C stout (it was late OK! :-P), and by the time  everything was mixed, it was ~ 3 cups in total.  Which puts my fat content closer to 12%.  This was noticeable because the ice cream took longer to set (~ 30min in my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker, and then left to harden overnight in the freezer), melted quicker , and had a more icey character than commercial ice cream. In contrast to the cake which tasted mostly of chocolate, this was kick-you-in-the-face stouty.  Really good if you like that taste.  I do believe that if I had added .5 C less stout it would have been perfect in flavor and texture.

All in all, these seemed to be a popular pairing when I served them, and as the summer progresses you will probably see more ice cream and sorbet recipes popping up on here.

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo.

Red Pepper Cheese rolls

I finally perfected this recipe, which is basically a cinnamon bun, but with cheese and red pepper flakes instead of gooey sugar mix.  For the dough, I used the ciabatta mix in the same pdf I used for baguettes, but with some changes, so the ingredient list reads:

Biga:  180g bread flour, 225ml water, 1/4 tsp yeast
Bread: Biga, 100g whole wheat flour, 80g bread flour, 80ml warm water, 1.5tsp salt, 1 tsp yeast, 1tsp sugar, 1tb milk powder, 2tb olive oil

The big was quickly mixed and left overnight under a damp towel.
The next morning I first dissolved the sugar in the warmed water, and sprinkled the yeast on top.  Then I added everything else to the Biga.  The yeast/water/sugar mix followed after 10min, and I set the bread machine on "dough".

This took me up to the equivalent of the end of the first rise, at which point I upended the dough onto an oiled silpat, and using my oiled hands, gently spread/pulled it into a 8x12 in rectangle.  The first time I did this, I rolled it out, which did not work nearly as well as a very gentle shaping, which preserves the large air bubbles.

Ok, at that point you just layer cheese and red pepper flakes (or the filling of your choice) gently on the dough and roll it up, cut into 6 pieces, and right them onto the silpat/parchment paper/ what have you.  Lastly, I sprayed them with a thin mist of oil from my Misto and a little water as well, to keep them from drying out during the 1 hour second rise.  (I also covered them with a sheet of parchment paper, but I think this retarded vertical rising.)

After this, I sprinkled on some Parmesan cheese and baked at 425 for 25-30min. (I re-misted them right before putting in the oven.)

They are very delicious, but the crust looses some of its crunch if stored in an airtight container.

Candied peppers

I ADORE pepper jelly; the hotter, the better.

I also like candied fruit peel because of the pretty jewel like tones.

I decided to combine these loves by candying various peppers.  For this trial run I got jalapeños, habaneros, and "red chilies" from WF.  All of them were washed, seeded, and cut into thin pieces before being left to simmer for 45min in a mix of 1c sugar and 1c water.  AT the end I was left with pretty jewel-like peppers, some of whichIi then dipped in semi-sweet chocolate.  Here are my reviews:

1. The jalapeños were the most flavorful without chocolate, but the most easily overwhelmed by it.
2. Citrus peel is usually dried in a warm oven post-candying, and I tried this, but it changed the peppers from gummy to thin and leathery
3. The chocolate overwhelmed the pepper flavor.

Next time:

Cut the peppers into bigger pieces (like just in 1/2) and do not dry them after candying, so get a thick gummy pepper and smaller chocolate the pepper ratio.

Ribs

Today I used my slow cooker as a water bath to cook ribs.  As previously mentioned, it will stay at exactly 160F when on "warm".  This is near the temperature at which collagen melts, which made me think that it would work well for "sous vide"ing certain types of meats.

The recipe was simple, a rack of pork ribs were left unwrapped in the fridge with a dry rub of mustard, brown sugar, various peppers, and salt for 48 hours; placed in a ziploc bag with all the air removed and 1/2 tsp of liquid smoke added; then cooked in the slow cooker for ~6 hours.  During that time they gave off 30% of their weight in water and rendered fat.

To give some malliardy char I seared them in a hot pan right before serving.  They were great!  Not at all fatty, but very moist with a soft but not mushy texture, and way less work than any oven or bbq ribs I have made.  This is definitely a nice weekday meal in terms of 15min total effort and it can cook while I am at work.  I also believe the same principle would work for pulled pork or any meat with lots of fat and connective tissue.

I tried reducing the liquid from the bags to make a bbq sauce with some molasses and cider vinegar, but this did not work well AT ALL.  I think because of the high fat content.  Luckily I love Trader Joe's bbq sauce and can use that in the future.

Baked Mackerel

We had a whole Mackerel in the fridge that needed to be cooked before it turned, so even though T was working all night, and I didn't get home until 8pm, I did something quick with it:

I mixed the juice of 2 lemons and the peel of one with 1 cup of pitted green olives and some olive oil and basil in a bowl, stuffed this mix into slits in the fish and baked at 350F for 30min, flipping after 20.

Ok, well to be more accurate, I at first put a meat probe in the fish which registered something like an internal temp of 190F at 20min (I was cooking it to 145F). So then I took it out, but it was clearly not done, so I flipped it and threw it back in for 10 more min, until it was more fragrant, and juices were spattering int he oven.

Next time I definitely need something like 2x the olive mix, but overall I was happy with it.  It was not too mackerelly in flavor.

Misc.

It turns out my Hamilton Beach slow cooker will maintain a  temperature of 160F exactly with the ld on and the house temp at 60F.  I used this fact to fake sous-vide a brisket in a ziploc of BBQ sauce and it was surprisingly good.

Also, two nights ago I made potatoes lyonnaise / home fries/ potatoes fried in a skillet, and for the first time ever they did not break apart while frying.  I credit On Food and Cooking, which suggested that placing vegetables in 130F-150F water for 20-30min will cause their cells walls to harden due to the activation of an enzyme which is denatured at 160F.  I brought the slow cooker to 150F, and then turned it off with the potato slices floating in a bag, and it fell to 135F after 30min.  They were noticeably firmer and fried up beautifully.

Crêpes

My second food project of the weekend was to make the crêpe recipe out of my "Breton Cuisine" cookbook.  These are dessert crêpes, and have a notably sweet taste.  (In Brittany savory crêpes are made with a  hig percentage of buckwheat flour.)  This is 1/3 of the listed recipe and made 5 crêpes, but one was small.

• 1 egg
• 165g pastry flour (whole wheat was what I had)
• 1 tbspn buckwheat flour
• 80g sugar
• 20g butter
• 400ml milk

According to the recipe, you mix every ingredient except the flour together, and then gradually add this mix to the flour.  On Food and Cooking says that with thin batters you want to minimize gluten formation and thus minimize mixing, so I am guessing that is why.  You then let it sit over night to allow the water to be properly absorbed.  I noticed that come morning I needed to re-stir everything for 2-3minutes because it had separated out into a glooey bottom layer and a wattery top layer, but then the mix stayed emulsified.

I served this with thawed frozen fruit and poached pears (taken from this recipe--must remember that 1 quart water to 1.3c sugar ratio), and though the photo looks hideous, it was quite yummy.  Previously I have made crêpes by over-diluting pancake mix (I use Red Mill buckwheat pancake mix for savory versions), and I will say that these were definitely finer and more delicate, which also made them harder to cook.

A final note on the actual cooking:

1. grease your pan liberally with butter and heat it until there is ample smoke over medium heat
2. Ladle on 1/2-1c batter and immediately spread this around to make an even thin layer.  (It should look as if the batter is floating on the butter.)
3. Flip as soon as you can do so without tearing the crêpe.

Toasted Cheese

This isn't really a recipe, but it has become my standard breakfast this week, so I will post it here anyway.
Toasted cheese is basically an open-faced grilled cheese made in a toaster oven.  Mine uses 3 ingredients:

1. Wheat french bread
1.  (this is my baguette recipe, but with 40% of the flour whole wheat and made entirely in the bread machine)
2. Jarlsberg cheese (sliced)
3. Romano cheese (shredded)

So basically I just put the thin slices of Jarlsberg on the bread, spread a layer of Romano on top, and place it in the toaster oven at 400C for 10min, closer to the top broiler than the bottom.

I cannot describe the deliciousness.

Boiling an Egg

I decided to blog doing one of the most basic cooking tasks.  I boiled a series of eggs in 1 minute increments from 3min to 14min.  They were put directly in boiling water from the fridge, and into ice water when their time was up.  I was specifically looking to replicate the following eggs from "On Food and Cooking":

• ouef  à la coque: a 2-3min semi-liquid egg
• My 3min egg matched the perfectly, and it tasted interesting, like a rich soup.  It would be better if not chilled by the ice water
• soft boiled: a 3-5min egg with three distinct parts (hard outer white, liquid inner white, liquid yolk)
• My 4min egg was exactly like this, and I enjoyed it quite a bit
• mollet egg: a 5-6min egg with a liquid yolk but hard white
• My 5min egg was this dead on, and was the first egg I could peel.  It reminded me of a poached egg, with a less watery white
• hard boiled egg: a 10-15 min egg that is solid throughout
• This wide time span seemed strange to me, so I wanted to see what changes happened in there. based on my 10-15min eggs the yolk changes color, but surprisingly, not texture, which went from  1/2 liquid 1/2 gelatinous at 9min directly to standard HB texture at 10min.

I can understand why OF&C doesn't mention egg types for 6-9min, because all of these eggs were strange chimerical beasts, with yolks half solidified.  I am somewhat sad that there was no stage at which the entire yolk resembled the bright orange outer yolk of 8min and 9min, which is my favorite texture.  Maybe I could cook the egg for 9min and then let it rest at RT?

According to my book the egg white semi-solidifies at 65C as ovotransferin coagulates, then becomes firm at 80C as albumin coagulates, and the yolk harden between 65 and 70C.  So maybe I need to try cooking an egg at exactly 65C to get the yolk I like. (Or maybe I am over-thinking this).

It was both kind of neat and a little annoying to get boring as-predicted results.  Since I prefer poached eggs to soft-boiled, the big take home for me was that 11min is where I want to stop boiling eggs for deviled eggs.

Hmm, now off to go make egg salad.

Cinnamon Buns

Another baking post, and this one an unmitigated success!

I wanted cinnamon rolls, and after looking around decided to try this recipe, but with the quantities adjusted to make 6 rolls.

I basically just threw everything in the bread machine, then rolled out the dough, brushed on melted butter and sprinkled on the sugar mix, rolled it up, cut out 6 rolls and let them rise in a greased cake pan, covered by a warm wet towel for 45min.  Then I baked for 25min at 350F, with a little water spritz.  They were VERY fluffy, not to sweet, and quite yumm.

The only real complication was that they weren't done until 1pm, so next time I would refrigerate them after the rise step and see if that works for fresh morning buns.

This blog is kinda boring when things go well.

Baguettes

For Christmas I received a Sunbeam bread machine and have fallen in love. <3
Today is my third attempt at a bread that needs to be shaped and baked outside the machine.  Historically these attempts have run into problems because the winter air is SO DRY that a skin forms on the rising bread, but this time. . . this time things will be different because I have a mister!



Ok, so I am using this recipe from King Arthur flour, and my goal with these posts is to document the changes I make and how they work:

1. I measured all of the ingredients by weight.  I am a scientist by profession and really like to be exact in baking.  Also, I discovered that my liquid measures can't agree on what 2/3 a cup of water looks like.
2. The "poolish" was made in a bowl and stirred with a fork.   It looked much doughier than the one pictured when I set it out, and I was worried about the overnight humidity loss, so I misted it down and covered the bowl with a damp towel.  In the morning it looked just like the photo. (yay)
3. I then skipped all the precise directions for mixing and kneading times, and just through everything in my bread machine in its 90min dough setting
1. Note for hypothetical-future-super-rich-self:  Buy a  bread machine with manual control over kneading and rising 
4. I lack all the fancy equipment mentioned, and don't even have plastic wrap, so I put my shaped baguettes onto oiled parchment paper (bunched to make dividers as in photo) sprayed them with water and put another oiled sheet of parchment above them before placing the bread in the over for the final 40min rise.
5. Halfway through, I misted again because I detected some drying.
6. My first real stumbling block:  My knife wasn't sharp enough to cut the dough, and instead of the classic baguette cuts that break to let the dough expand, I just got lame dimples.  This may also be because my baguettes were already quite wide.

As you can see below these came out less like a round baguette and more like some type of weird flat loaf.  Clearly I need to try again, maybe with less misting, so the dough holds shape better in the second rise.  Also, next time I think I will try 1/3 whole wheat flour.  On the plus side I think they will make for great sandwich buns, and the "poolish" gives them a delicious and distinct flavor compared to white bread.