The Cooking of Joy

Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

2010-07-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had eaten some pasta with bolognese sauce at Basta Pasta in Cambridge, and afterwards, I was totally craving more of the savory meat sauce. I remembered that The Kitchen had posted a recipe for making it using a slow cooker which sounded perfect, since I didn't really want to have to deal with hours in front of a hot stove during the summertime. Even so, you do need to spend some time sweating the vegetables, browning the meat, and reducing the liquids, but the end result is so totally worth it. The only changes I made to the original recipe is that instead of adding 1 cup of the reserved tomato juices, I reduced all the tomato juice from the 2 cans until there was only about 1 cup of liquid left and added that to the slow cooker. Also, I used a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork instead just ground beef.

Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce (from The Kitchn)
makes 6 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup milk (whole or 2-percent)
1 cup white wine
2 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes, drained and finely chopped (juices reserved)
1 cup reserved tomato juices

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and cook until the onion is translucent and all the vegetables have softened. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the pork and beef, breaking it apart with your spoon and cooking until it is just browned. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Stir in the milk and bring it to a rapid simmer. Continue simmering until the milk has reduced completely and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes. Stir in the wine and simmer again until reduced completely, about 10 minutes. Transfer the beef mixture to the slow cooker.

In the same, now-empty pot, reduce the reserved tomato juices until you have about 1 cup left.

Add the chopped tomatoes and reduced tomato juices to the slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.

In the last half hour of cooking, remove the lid to allow any excess liquid to evaporate and reduce the sauce. The finished sauce should be chunky and creamy without being soupy.

Serve over spaghetti with a hunk of crusty bread for mopping up the sauce!

Coconut Lime Sorbet

2010-07-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I'll scan Craigslist to see if anyone's selling an ice cream maker with its own compressor. They're usually several hundred dollars, so it's something that would be nice to have, but definitely not necessary, especially since I have such a reliable Cuisinart ICE-20. But a couple of weeks ago, I found one being sold for only $80. I was a little suspicious so I asked the seller why he was selling it, and he said that he was getting married, and his wife-to-be wanted him to get rid of stuff. Well, I was more than happy to help him out. It was a nice surprise when he included four ice cream sundae glasses, an ice cream scoop, and two ice cream recipe books with it as well!

The ice cream maker in question is a Lello 4070 Gelato Junior, and I love it! No more needing to pre-freeze the canister; I don't even need to chill the ice cream base before starting up the machine! The only thing I miss about my Cuisinart is that I can't really get any good pictures of the ice cream as it's churning....

One recipe I really wanted to try out in my new ice cream maker was this one for coconut lime sorbet. It's definitely one of my all-time favorite ice creams to make, and even won the ice cream thrown down I participated in a couple of years ago. But it doesn't always freeze well. There's definitely been a couple of times when the Cuisinart canister started melting before the sorbet was done churning. So I knew that it would be a good way to test how well the Lello ice cream maker worked.

Coconut Lime Sorbet (from epicurious)
makes about 1 pint

15-ounce can cream of coconut (preferably Coco Lopez)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup fresh lime juice

In a bowl whisk together ingredients. Freeze mixture in an ice-cream maker. Transfer sorbet to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

I love the fact that there are only three ingredients for this sorbet; two, if you don't count the water. Also, you don't need to heat or chill the base before freezing. In fact, you shouldn't chill the base because then the coconut fat would solidify out of the mixture. What I think is kind of interesting is that it does harden when you're churning it, but since it's dissipated throughout the sorbet, it almost forms chips of coconut fat, adding a little bit of texture. I think it's almost a misnomer to label this treat a sorbet because, even though it doesn't contain any dairy, it's so super rich! The sweetness from the cream of coconut and the tartness from the fresh lime juice is also really intense.

I've used bottled lime juice before in a pinch when I didn't have any fresh limes, and it tasted just as good. I would definitely NOT substitute coconut milk for the cream of coconut, though. Cream of coconut is a lot sweeter and fattier than coconut milk; if you use coconut milk instead it just won't have the right amount of sweetness or texture. Trust me on this one. One last thing, just as this sorbet doesn't freeze well, it also melts rather quickly, so make sure you take it out only right before you want to serve it.

Bruschetta

2010-06-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

I went to Trader Joe's Friday night intending to just pick up some sugar and something for dinner when I got stopped by the gorgeous display of basil plants outside on sale. I'd had a couple of basil plants before, but because I travel so much and they need regular watering, I'd never managed to keep them alive for long. But these were so cheap, I justified getting another one by reasoning that it would have cost just as much to get a package of fresh basil leaves, and these could have the chance of being sustainable.

Having your own basil plant not only means needing to water it regularly (by the way, how often is "regularly" anways?) but also needing to cook a lot more with basil since the plant is so prolific! I was going to the beach on Saturday, so I decided I'd make a bruschetta topping and pack some marinated mozzarella balls and bagel chips (both also from TJ's) for lunch. I used the grape tomatoes and garlic I got in my Boston Organics delivery and just added 4 other ingredients: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. I liked using the grape tomatoes because they have a lot of flavor, are a little sweeter, and are almost never mealy like salad tomatoes can get.

Bruschetta
makes about 4 servings

1 pint grape tomatoes
Handful of fresh basil leaves
1 large garlic clove
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (I used white)
Salt and pepper

Chop up the grape tomatoes using a serrated knife. Depending on the size of the tomato, I cut them into 4, 6, or 8 pieces each. Chop up the basil and throw it in with the tomatoes.

Crush the garlic clove using a garlic press (or mince it by hand) and add to the tomatoes as well.

Drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar. Mix well and salt and pepper to taste. Let sit for a bit to macerate. Serve with slices of toasted French bread or bagel chips.

These pictures are of the bruschetta right after it's been mixed together. It gets a lot more liquidy and wilted but starts to taste better and better as the flavors mix. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the bruschetta once it got to that point because I had gone to get a popsicle, and when I came back, the bruschetta was all gone. I think Jenny was even trying to lick the plastic container clean.

Bacon Caramel Maple Ice Cream

2010-06-23T18:17:00.001-07:00

I wasn't planning on doing another post on bacon and caramel after posting about bacon fat caramels and bacon caramel corn. But then I met the girl behind 3am Confections, Erika, and she started telling me about the bacon caramels that she makes, and I just knew I had to have some. These actually aren't on her website, but she made me a batch anyways and even hand-delivered them to me! Like the caramels I made, they're topped with Maldon salt and diced bacon. Unlike mine, they're butter based instead of made with bacon fat, which means they're not as soft at room temperature. Another huge difference is that she fries the bacon with a secret ingredient that gives the bacon a subtle kick.

After eating four of these in a row (because I couldn't stop myself), I decided to assert some self control because I wanted to immortalize these in an ice cream. At first I was thinking of just dicing them up and adding them to a sweet cream base so as to really highlight the caramels themselves. But then I came up with the idea of adding them to a maple ice cream since I do so love dipping my bacon slices in maple syrup. I based the maple ice cream on the maple walnut ice cream recipe from Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book.

Bacon Caramel Maple Ice Cream

makes about 1 pint

1 large egg
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons maple syrup, grade B
1/2 cup 3am Confections bacon caramels, diced (about 8 caramels)

Whisk egg until light and frothy. Add sugar, a little at a time and whisk to dissolve. Add heavy cream, milk, and maple syrup. Cover and chill.

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker until almost firm, then fold in caramels. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

I found the maple flavoring to be really subtle; if I had some, I probably would add some maple extract to the ice cream base to bring out the maple flavor even more. The recipe in the Ben & Jerry's book suggests using a grade C maple syrup which would probably help as well.

The caramels get pretty hard, but not to the point where it will crack your teeth or anything. If it's something you're wary of, though, I'd suggest dicing the caramels finely so that you don't get a big hard gob in your mouth.

Amnesty Bread

2010-06-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

After a post about World Peace Cookies, it only seems appropriate to follow up with a post on Amnesty Bread. The idea for the name came from David Lebovitz's Amnesty Cookies, which are really Compost Cookies. But the theory is that you declare a day of amnesty for your fridge and pantry and just throw everything you want to get rid of into this bread. I had a zucchini, a pear, and two bananas from my Boston Organics delivery that needed to be used up plus some leftover dried cranberries and walnuts. If I had had carrots I would've grated those up and thrown them in here, too. Raisins, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and other types of nuts would certainly have worked just as well in here. If you make any substitutions, I'd recommend trying to keep it a total of 2 cups of grated veggies or fruits and 1 cup total of dried fruits, nuts, or chocolate.

Amnesty Bread
makes 2 loaves or 24 muffins

3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 zucchini, grated
1 pear, peeled, cored, and grated
2 bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour two 8"x4" bread loaf pans or line 24 muffin tins.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light yellow and frothy. Add oil, brown sugar, white sugar, grated zucchini, pear, bananas, and vanilla; blend together until well combined. Stir in 3 1/4 cups of the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Toss the remaining 1/4 cup flour with the cranberries and nuts and mix in with the rest of the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans or muffin tins.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes for the loaf pans and 35 minutes for the muffins.

It's not the prettiest of breads or muffins, but it certainly does its job, which is to use up all those ingredients in a yummy way. It's quite moist, thanks to all the zucchini and fruits, but also a sturdy enough bread that you could slice and toast it and serve it with some butter.

World Peace Cookies

2010-06-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

The story behind these cookies is that Dorie Greenspan's neighbor had told her that the cookies were so good that, "in our house, we call them World Peace Cookies, because we're convinced that a daily dose of the cookies is all that's needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness." I've been meaning to make these cookies for quite a while, but it wasn't until the Boston Dragon Boat Festival dock staff kept bugging me for some homemade cookies that I finally decided to make them to appease the two Petes.

These are basically chocolate shortbreads, or sables, with chocolate chunks and a dash of salt. I made a whole batch, meaning to bring them to a party, but they were so good I decided to keep most of them for myself. They're perfect eating with a glass of cold milk, and if I had had any vanilla ice cream on hand, I would have totally made ice cream sandwiches with them.

World Peace Cookies (from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours)
makes about 36 cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them — don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Elote (Mexican Grilled Corn)

2010-06-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

I tried elote for the first time a while ago at La Verdad, but I wasn't totally blown away. Then I tried it at Toro a couple of weeks ago, and wow, I couldn't get enough of it! (As an aside, I had always assumed that Toro was a Japanese sushi place because to me, toro = fatty bluefin tuna belly. So I was a little surprised to find out it was actually a tapas restaurant, where toro = Spanish for bull.)

A couple days later I was going to a bbq, so I decided to look up how to make it myself. What I came up with is an amalgam of what I found and a few adjustments to make the corn more similar to how I remember they made it at Toro. I chose to pre-cook the corn before grilling it so that I could ensure that the corn was cooked all the way through and also so that I wouldn't be hogging up time and space on the grill. I also added some raw garlic and the spices to the mayonnaise since I remember there was a garlicky taste in their sauce, which was pink. I found the cotija cheese, a mild, aged cheese, at Whole Foods, but if you can't find it, you can substitute either grated Parmesan or crumbled feta cheese.

Elote (Mexican Grilled Corn)
makes 12 servings

12 ears of corn
1 cup mayonnaise
2 garlic cloves
4 limes
Cayenne pepper
Chile powder
Paprika
1 cup crumbled cotija cheese

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Place corn in husks directly on the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes, or until corn is soft to the touch. After it has cooled, remove the silk and husks. If you like, you can break the ears in half.

Run the garlic cloves through a garlic press (or mince well) and add to the mayonnaise. Add the juice from half of a lime and quarter the rest of the limes. Mix in cayenne pepper, chile powder, and paprika to taste.

Grill the corn on a hot grill until lightly charred. Top with the mayonnaise sauce and crumbled cotija cheese. Sprinkle on more cayenne pepper and/or chile powder as desired, and serve with lime wedges.

Homemade Dulce de Leche and Dulce de Leche Ice Cream

2010-06-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hola! Did you miss me? Sorry for the unexpected break, but the last month has been full of exciting happenings including bumping into the cast of Glee on a flight from Chicago to New York, racing in the Boston Dragon Boat Festival with The Boat for Kids Who Don't Paddle Good, and a vacation to Argentina and Brazil.

It was down in Buenos Aires that I fell in love with dulce de leche. I used my Marriott points to stay at the Marriott Plaza Hotel, and because I'm a Gold Elite member, we got to eat breakfast in the Concierge Lounge each morning. And each morning they put out little jars of dulce de leche to spread on the pastries. It was so good, I ended up putting some in my coffee, too! I just knew I had to try to make some at home, and luckily, there is a rather easy (and safe*) method. Basically all you do is put a can (or two or three) of sweetened condensed milk in a crock pot, fill it with water, turn it on low, and let it cook for 8 hours. That's it! Obviously, you'll want to wait for the cans to come back down to room temperature before attempting to open them, or else you'll risk having hot dulce de leche squirting out of the can.

I'll admit that it doesn't taste quite as good as the real thing, but for how easy it was to make, it's pretty darn close. Now my only problem was what to do with the dulce de leche. See, while it was great spreading it all over pastries and stirring into my coffee, I don't really have pastries just sitting around at home, nor do I usually make coffee at home. So I figured I'd look for a recipe to make dulce de leche ice cream. I came across this one on Epicurious with the following description: "This is not just the best dulce de leche ice cream we've ever had, it's one of the best ice creams we've ever had, period." With a testimonial like that, how could I not try to make it?

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream with Toasted Pecans (from Epicurious)
makes about 1.5 quarts

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 pound dulce de leche (this ended up being a little more than 1 can of homemade dulce de leche)
1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup chopped pecans (2 1/2 to 3 oz), toasted

Bring milk and cream just to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, then remove from heat and whisk in dulce de leche until dissolved. Whisk in vanilla and transfer to a metal bowl. Quick-chill by putting bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stirring occasionally until cold, 15 to 20 minutes.

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker until almost firm, then fold in pecans.

Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 1 hour.

To be honest, I still think the passion fruit ice cream was the best ice cream I ever made. But this one is definitely high up on the list. The addition of the toasted pecans almost made it taste like butter pecan ice cream, but with a richer, caramelized flavor. Probably the hardest part of making this was making sure the pecans didn't burn when toasting them. I almost always end up throwing out the first batch because I forget about them and soon I'm left with blackened, useless pecans. So make sure you keep a careful eye on the pecans! The added flavor from toasting them is so worth the extra effort.

*Safe because the alternative way to make this is to add a can of sweetened condensed milk to boiling water and boiling it for several hours, which could possibly lead to exploding cans. One of my friends from Taiwan used to call this, "Danger Pudding" for that reason.

Passion Fruit Ice Cream

2010-05-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

I still had a lot of passion fruit pulp left over from making the lilikoi malasadas so I thought I'd try to make some passion fruit ice cream. This recipe uses whole eggs just like my favorite strawberry ice cream recipe. I noticed that when cooking the custard, it doesn't get as thick as the yolk-only custards before it threatens to curdle. So make sure you don't look for it to coat the back of your spoon and take it off the heat as soon as it reaches 170°F.

Because I only had one cup of heavy cream, I divided all the ingredients by a third except for the passion fruit. Quite a few of the comments for the recipe mentioned adding more pulp so I added more proportionally.

Passion Fruit Ice Cream (adapted from the recipe on epicurious)
makes about a pint

1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup passion fruit pulp

Whisk together sugar and eggs. Heat cream in a small heavy saucepan over moderate heat until it just reaches a boil, then add hot cream to egg mixture in a slow stream, whisking. Pour custard into saucepan.

Cook custard over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until it registers 170°F on an instant-read or candy thermometer (do not let boil). Pour custard through a fine sieve into a clean bowl and cool completely. Stir in passion fruit pulp, then chill, covered, until cold.

Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Can I just say, I really, really love this ice cream. It's light and tart and sweet and tropical sunshine on a spoon. It's so super delicious I only need a couple of spoonfuls to be happy. Just knowing that I have some sitting in my freezer waiting for me makes me happy. You should definitely make this ice cream so you can be happy, too. =)

Compost Cookies

2010-04-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

When my friend, Stephen, turned 30, I asked him what he'd like me to make for his birthday party, and he replied, "I am a fan of all types of cookies." Which was great, because I've been wanting to make Momofuku Milk Bar's Compost Cookies for a long time now, but I kind of needed the right occasion to make them because there was no way I was going to be able to eat them all by myself. And these cookies deserve an audience.

Sure, the name might cause people to pause, but I'm guessing the reason behind it is that you throw a little bit of everything into these cookies: potato chips, pretzels, chocolate chips, etc. If you're a fan of the sweet and salty, you'll love these cookies. I ended up making a batch of the 6 oz. cookies and a batch of cookies where I portioned out the dough into 1" balls, which ended up giving me about 50 "normal" sized cookies. And to save time, I alternated between using a parchment lined stoneware baking sheet and a silpat lined metal baking sheet, both of which worked well in protecting the cookies from getting burnt.

Compost Cookies (from here)
makes 15 big cookies or 50 smaller cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups AP flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 cups your favorite baking ingredients! (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and Heath toffee bits)
1 1/2 cups your favorite snack foods (I used Wavy potato chips and peanut butter pretzel sandwiches)

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter, sugars and corn syrup on medium high for 2-3 minutes until fluffy and pale yellow in color. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a spatula.

On a lower speed, add eggs and vanilla to incorporate. Increase mixing speed to medium-high and start a timer for 10 minutes. During this time the sugar granules will fully dissolve, the mixture will become an almost pale white color and your creamed mixture will double in size.

When time is up, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix by hand just until your dough comes together and all remnants of dry ingredients have incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a spatula.

Add in the hodgepodge of your favorite baking ingredients and mix until they are evenly incorporated into the dough. Add in your favorite snack foods last, until they are just incorporated.

Portion cookie dough into 6 oz. mounds onto a plate. Wrap portioned cookie dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour or up to 1 week.

DO NOT BAKE your cookies from room temperature or they will not hold their shape.

Preheat the conventional oven to 400°F.

When the oven reads 400°F and your cookie dough has been chilled at least an hour, roll the cookie dough mounds into balls and arrange on a parchment or silpat-lined sheet pan a minimum of 4" apart in any direction.

Bake 9-11 minutes. While in the oven, the cookies will puff, crackle and spread.

At 9 minutes the cookies should be browned on the edges and just beginning to brown towards the center. Leave the cookies in the oven for the additional minutes if these colors don't match up and your cookies stills seem pale and doughy on the surface.

Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pan before transferring to a plate or an airtight container or tin for storage. At room temperature, cookies will keep fresh 5 days. In the freezer, cookies will keep fresh 1 month.

Lilikoi Malasadas (or Portuguese Donuts filled with Passion Fruit Curd)

2010-04-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from my brother with a link to a recipe for lilikoi malasadas. He asked if I thought they would be hard to make because he had had some in Hawaii and they were "amaaazing". I skimmed through the recipe quickly and replied, "Doesn't sound that hard as long as you can get me some unsweetened lilikoi (or passion fruit) concentrate and unsweetened guava concentrate. No idea where I'd even find that stuff.... Also, if you can get me a stand mixer with a dough hook, I'd be all set." And that was the end of that conversation.

Until last week when I announced on Facebook that I had finally caved in and bought a KitchenAid stand mixer. While most of my friends were congratulating me on the purchase, Timmy's only comment was "can you try making those lilikoi malasadas now?" Can you tell he's a younger brother?

There was still the issue of finding lilikoi concentrate and guava concentrate in the Boston area. I checked Shaws and Harvest and even Whole Foods with no luck. Then I looked on-line, and there were some suggestions of trying a local Brazilian grocery store, but then I saw some posts that mentioned I should be able to find it at Shaws in the frozen foods section where the Goya products are. So I went back to Shaws, and lo and behold, there was frozen passion fruit pulp! And when I went back to Harvest later on, I was able to find frozen guava pulp there!

Now that I had all the ingredients and equipment I needed (I actually had to borrow a stand mixer from Susan because mine hadn't come in yet; thanks, Susan!), I had no more excuses, so I spent this past Saturday making these beauties. Note: this recipe does take quite a bit of time what with making the dough, letting it rise, then chilling it for 2 hours, then shaping and letting it rise again, then frying it, and finally filling the malasadas with the passion fruit curd. But it's so, so worth it, especially if you don't live in Hawaii and can't just buy these at a local bakery whenever you want. Also, I did make the guava coulis from the original recipe, but I thought the resulting coulis was way too watery, so I'm not including it here. The malasadas were more than fine without it.

Lilikoi Malasadas (from here)
makes 50 donuts

Lilikoi Curd

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup thawed lilikoi (passion fruit) pulp
6 egg yolks, beaten

In a small saucepan, mix together the sugar, butter, lemon and lilikoi pulp; bring to a boil.

In a small mixing bowl, whip the eggs yolks with 1/4 of the hot lilikoi mixture; pour the yolk mixture back to the saucepan.

Simmer, uncovered, whisking continuously until thickened and starts to bubble. Do not allow the lilikoi curd to come to a to a full boil or the eggs will start curdling. Strain and chill.

Malasadas

3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
7 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups butter, softened to room temperature
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Sugar

In a large bowl of an electric mixer use the dough hook to mix together the flour, sugar, and yeast.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time to form a thick paste; continue to mix at medium speed for 15 more minutes, then add the salt. Add the softened butter, 1/2 cup at a time, while continuing to mix at medium speed.

Transfer dough to a large bowl, cover, and allow to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk.

Refrigerate for 2 hours. Form the dough into 1-inch balls and allow it to rise once more at room temperature.

Heat oil to 375°F. Fry the dough until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Roll in sugar.

Fill the malasadas with the lilikoi curd using a pastry bag.

The lilikoi curd is seriously one of the best things I have tasted in a long time. It's tart and sweet and buttery and custardy all at the same time, and you just want to start spreading it on everything. Then I tried a freshly fried malasada, and I knew the lilikoi curd had met its match. The outside was crispy from the frying and crunchy from the granulated sugar while the inside was soft and chewy and slightly sweet. I only wish I had been able to pipe in more of the lilikoi curd because the little squirt I got in there just wasn't enough.

Red Wine and Pear Sorbet

2010-04-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

I made this a while ago before this blog was born and really liked it so when my stash of pears from Boston Organics started building up, I thought it was high time to make this again. The original recipe from Martha Stewart has directions for how to make this without an ice cream maker, but seeing as how I have one, it seemed silly not to use it.

Red Wine and Pear Sorbet (adapted from Everyday Food)
makes about 1 quart

1 cup dry red wine

3/4 cup sugar

1 pound ripe pears, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch pieces (2 cups)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Coarse salt

In a medium saucepan, bring wine, 1 1/4 cups water, and sugar to a boil over medium heat, stirring often, until sugar dissolves. Add pears; reduce heat, and simmer until tender.

Stir in lemon juice and a pinch of salt; cool completely. Transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender to puree the mixture. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

Once chilled, churn in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's directions. Transfer to a container, cover, and freeze overnight or for several hours to harden.

Although the original recipe said it would only take 5-10 minutes, I ended up having to cook the pears for over 20 minutes before they were tender. This may have been because I used one Bartlett pear and one green pear instead of just Bartlett pears like the original recipe said. Because I was cooking the mixture for that long, I figured I would have boiled off most of the alcohol, but there was still enough left to make this a pretty soft sorbet. It's also kind of gritty in the way that pears are naturally gritty. Not a bad thing, but if you don't like the texture of pears, you might want to pass on this recipe. But if you like poached pears, you definitely need to try this out. It tastes elegant and sophisticated, like something that should be served in a goblet vs. a normal dessert bowl. I would totally serve this as a palate cleanser or at the end of a heavy dinner of say, steak.

Alphabet and Rosemary Cheddar Crackers

2010-04-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

I love Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, so when I saw this post on how to make your own, I was really excited to try it out. I don't have any teeny, tiny goldfish cookie cutters, but I do have rather small alphabet fondant cutters, so I thought it'd be fun to make alphabet crackers.

I'm used to the bright orange color of the original crackers, so I wanted to find some bright orange cheese to use, but I couldn't find any. So I tried the next best thing and added some yellow food coloring to half the dough since I don't have any orange food coloring, and didn't want to end up with a peach color like I did the last time I tried mixing red and yellow. But the dough was too stiff coming out of the fridge, and I didn't have the patience (or the daylight left) to knead it through properly, so it ended up looking kind of marbled. Which is fine because you can't even tell in the finished product, and ironically enough, the non-yellowed crackers turned out more orange-ish!

While the dough was chilling overnight in the fridge, I remembered that I still had some fresh rosemary left from making the duck fat French fries and thought it'd be nice to add some to the cheese cracker dough. So I added some rosemary leaves to the other half of the dough (after all, rosemary cheddar crackers are for adults and don't need artificial food coloring).

Rosemary Cheddar Crackers (adapted from Ellie's Home Cooking)
makes about 1 quart of crackers

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper (optional)

4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves

3-4 tablespoons water

Pulse the flour, salt and pepper in a food processor, then add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add grated cheese a little at a time until the mixture again resembles coarse meal.

Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough forms into a ball. It will probably take a minute or so.

Remove from the food processor and knead in the rosemary. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.

Roll the dough out to 1/8th-inch thickness directly onto a baking sheet. You don't want to roll them paper thin, neither do you want to roll them too thick. If they are too thin, they will not puff up as much. If they are too thick, they will not be as crispy.

Using a knife, pizza cutter, or cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes.

Bake at 350° F for 15-20 minutes or until crackers are golden brown. Watch them after the 10 minute mark.

I didn't roll the dough out as thin as I should have for some of the crackers, and they were definitely not as crispy as the thinner ones. They did puff up so that they were almost cubical, though, so I threw them on top of a salad because as someone pointed out, they looked just like croutons.

I don't think these tasted exactly like Goldfish crackers, but that's because they don't taste like something you can buy in a store. Which is to say, these tasted like the fresh ingredients they were made out of. I definitely preferred the rosemary crackers to the ones without; the herb added a nice aromatic, almost astringent note to the richness of crackers. Next time I might try adding a bit of Tabasco sauce to the dough to add some heat.

Lastly, you can make this using only all-purpose flour or only whole wheat flour. I tried using half all-purpose and half white whole wheat and will probably try all whole wheat next time since it doesn't seem to make a huge difference.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Fried Rice

2010-04-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

When I first saw this recipe on Bitten, I knew I had to make it the very next time I received leeks in my Boston Organics delivery. Finally, my patience paid off. This fried rice recipe is familiar in some ways--using day old rice and eggs--but quite novel in others. There are no vegetables other than the leeks or any chopped, leftover meat. Instead, minced fresh garlic and ginger are fried until crisp and then sprinkled on top to dress the rice along with a drizzling of sesame oil and soy sauce.

In the article, Mark Bittman writes that Jean-Georges uses rendered chicken fat; since I had duck fat leftover from making the duck fat fries, I used that instead. Also, instead of using day-old cooked rice, I used rice that had been cooked a month ago and frozen in the freezer. Whenever I have leftover cooked rice, I always divide it into first-sized portions and wrap them in plastic wrap and stick them in the freezer when they're still warm. That way I can just heat it up in the microwave for a minute to thaw, and none of the moisture is lost. Of course, after sitting in the freezer for a whole month, some of the moisture is lost, which makes it perfect to use for fried rice.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Fried Rice (from Bitten)
makes 2 servings

1/4 cup duck fat
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
Kosher salt
1 cup thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts only, rinsed and dried
2 cups day-old cooked rice, preferably jasmine, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons soy sauce

In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup duck fat over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp and brown. With a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels and salt lightly.

Reduce heat under skillet to medium-low and add 2 tablespoons duck fat and leeks. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until very tender but not browned. Season lightly with salt.

Raise heat to medium and add rice. Cook, stirring well, until heated through. Season to taste with salt.

In a nonstick skillet, fry eggs in remaining duck fat, sunny-side-up, until edges are set but yolk is still runny.

Divide rice among two dishes. Top each with an egg and drizzle with 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil and 1 teaspoon soy sauce. Sprinkle crisped garlic and ginger over everything and serve.

I added a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds and chopped scallions on top as well just for a little more texture and color. I was a little scared that the ginger might be too strong for my liking, but it was a lot more mild after frying, and the crunch it delivers is a real highlight to the dish.

This recipe is truly inspired. There are very few ingredients, but because each is an aromatic, and you keep using the same fat to cook the ginger, garlic, and leeks, you end up building a lot of flavor in the final dish. At the same time, I finally know what they mean on Top Chef when they talk about simple, clean food. Thank you, Jean-Georges and Mark, for sharing this recipe. Now I really want to go to one of Vongerichten's restaurants. Luckily, he's opened one in Boston, and it's also participating in Taste of the Nation Boston tomorrow!

The Best Scones in the World

2010-04-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

For Easter this year, my church wanted to serve scones for Soul Cafe. Two thousand scones, to be exact. And thanks to everyone's help, we made two thousand one hundred and twelve!

Thankfully, one of my good friend, James, has the best scone recipe in the world, which we used to make sweet blueberry scones and savory candied bacon, cheese, corn, and scallion scones. Guess which ones were more popular....

The Best Scones in the World (courtesy of James W. Cheng)
makes ~100 scones

8 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup chopped candied bacon*
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 cup chopped scallions
1 quart heavy cream

Preheat oven to 375°F.

*To make candied bacon, sprinkle brown sugar over bacon slices and bake at 375°F until crisp.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces and then press into the dry mixture until the texture is like corn meal. Mix in the bacon, corn, cheese, and scallions.

Add heavy cream and mix just enough to form a dough. If you have the time, stick this back in the fridge to chill.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto the sheet, leaving at least 1" between scones. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

To make the blueberry scones, just substitute 3 cups of frozen blueberries for the bacon, corn, cheese, and scallions. Ideally, we'd have glazed the blueberry scones with a lemon glaze, but there wasn't enough time. According to one Family Ministry pastor, however, they were still super delicious. =)

We made the scones pretty small because we wanted to be able to feed everyone, but you could definitely double the size of these if you wanted larger scones. Just make sure you increase the baking time appropriately.

Apple Tarte Tatin

2010-03-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of apples plus a lemon from the last Boston Organics delivery, so when I found a box of puff pastry in my freezer that I had forgotten about, I immediately thought of trying to make a tarte tatin. I never took French, so I have no idea how to pronounce that, but it sure sounded good: apples caramelized in butter and sugar, then topped with puff pastry and finished in the oven.

I remembered Molly (of Orangette fame) had included a recipe for tarte tatin in her book, A Homemade Life, so I pretty much followed that version. It wasn't until I went to copy and paste her version on-line that I realized the book version of the recipe didn't exactly mention that the puff pastry was supposed to be "1/2 inch wider all around than the skillet". And you can see why below; the pastry shrinks as it bakes. But I don't think it really matters all that much once you flip it over. I also changed it up a bit by cutting the apples into sixteenths instead of quarters since I only had 4 apples. And instead of placing them rounded side down, I made a spiral patter with the slices on their sides.

Apple Tarte Tatin (based on Orangette's version here)
makes 8 servings

4 large apples, (I used Fuji)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
About 14 ounces puff pastry

Peel and core the apples and cut each into 16 slices. Toss the apple slices in a large bowl with the lemon juice and ½ cup of the sugar. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a 9-inch oven-safe skillet over medium heat. Add the remaining 1 cup sugar, along with a few tablespoons of the apple-lemon juices. Stir to mix. Cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, for about 15 minutes, or until the mixture is a smooth, bubbly, pale caramel color.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully add apple slices, arranging them neatly in a decorative pattern. Arrange a second layer of apples on top wherever they fit, closely packed. This second layer need not be terribly neat. Top the apples with the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into dice.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Cook the apples over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, occasionally spooning the bubbling caramel liquid over them. Press them down gently with the back of a spoon — don’t worry if they shift a bit in the liquid; just move them back to where they were — and watch to make sure that no one area of the pan is bubbling more than another. Shift the pan as necessary so that the apples cook evenly. They are ready when the liquid in the pan has turned to a thick, amber ooze. The apples should still be slightly firm. Do not allow them to get entirely soft or the liquid to turn dark brown. Remove the pan from the heat.

On a floured surface, roll the puff pastry out to a thickness of about 3/16 inch. Using a sharp, thin knife, trace a circle in the pastry about 10 inches in diameter (1/2 inch wider all around than the skillet), and trim away any excess. Carefully lay the pastry circle over the apples in the skillet, tucking the overlap down between the apples and the inside of the pan.

Place the skillet on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the pastry has risen, and is dry and golden brown. Remove the skillet from the oven, and let it to rest for a minute or two. Tilt the pan and look down inside the edge: if there is a lot of juice, pour most of it off into the sink. [Do not pour it all off, or the apples may stick to the pan.] Place a serving platter upside-down over the skillet and, working quickly and carefully (it’s hot!), invert the tart onto the platter. Rearrange any apple slices that may have slipped or stuck to the skillet. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Now if only I could figure out what to do with all the buttered apple juices I drained off....

Duck Fat French Fries with Rosemary, Maldon Salt, and Truffle Oil

2010-03-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

...And back to the unhealthy. (Although in my defense, I did try to make baked sweet potato fries the same day I made these, but they were just such a fail in comparison to these that I am ashamed to post about them.)

When I first read about the cold fat method of making French fries on Bitten, I was ecstatic. A way to make crispy fries without the splatter and smell of oil all over your kitchen? Genius! And then I thought, why not go all the way and really dress these fries up? I had had the rosemary truffle fries at Garden at the Cellar recently, and really, really loved them, so I picked up some fresh rosemary and white truffle oil from Whole Foods. (As another aside, did you know that most "truffle oils" on the market don't even contain real truffles? If you look at the list of ingredients, it just says "truffle flavoring" or something like that, which is code for chemicals which have never seen a truffle before. Unfortunately, I think there is only one brand of truffle oils in the U.S. that contain real truffles, and it wasn't available at Whole Foods.)

I also had a box of Maldon salt I had picked up from Christina's Spices in Inman Square. I'd rave about this salt myself, except it's already been done by so many people with so much more cooking cred than me. Needless to say, this is pretty much one of the best finishing salts you can buy. What I really love about this salt, other than the taste, is what a tactile experience it is to crush the flakes between your fingertips.

And of course, I had duck fat. Oh, how I love thee, duck fat. Especially with potatoes. (And don't forget, duck fat is better for you than butter!)

I used the potatoes I had received in my Boston Organics delivery. I'm not sure what exact kind they were, but they were relatively small and, I believe, from Prince Edward Island.

Duck Fat French Fries with Rosemary, Maldon Salt, and Truffle Oil (method pretty much taken word for word from Bitten)

Potatoes, peeled
Enough fat to cover the cut potatoes (duck fat, peanut oil, etc., or any combination thereof)
Fresh rosemary
Maldon salt
Truffle oil

Cut your peeled potatoes into whatever shape you like, but probably no skinnier than three-eighths of an inch. Rinse them and shake off the water (part of the genius of this technique is that a little residual water won’t cause splattering, so you don’t need to towel-dry the potatoes). Put them in a heavy pan — a straight-sided sauté pan is ideal, but anything not too shallow will do. They should ideally be in a single layer, but this is not always practical: aim for it, though. Add room-temperature fat just to thoroughly cover and put the pan over low heat, without a lid.

As the oil temperature slowly rises, the potatoes will, in effect, poach in fat and their excess water will gently evaporate (hence the lack of splattering). Yes, the oil will bubble, but reassuringly, not alarmingly. Every now and again, use a thin-bladed spatula or a long-handled spoon to make sure they are not sticking (their starch has a tendency to cause this) and give the pan a shake. Be very careful: at a certain point they will be very, very fragile — cooked but not yet crisp.

When the potatoes are very tender, you can raise the heat, but only a little. Say, from low to medium-low. They will finally start to crisp and turn golden, and will ultimately become french fries. Excellent ones. The one down side (apart from the limit on quantity) is that this can take as long as an hour.

When your fries are starting to brown, throw in some of the fresh rosemary. When your fries are sufficiently crisp and browned, remove fries and rosemary with a slotted spoon and drain. Drizzle a little truffle oil on top. Grab a pinch of Maldon salt and crush between your fingers to sprinkle on top. Repeat to taste.

I'm pretty sure you could make these French fries with regular oil instead of duck fat, with regular sea salt instead of Maldon salt, and without the rosemary and truffle oil, and they would still taste great. I was kind of surprised by how non-greasy these were on the inside. I figured that having the potatoes sit in fat for so long would've meant they would've been soaked in grease, but in actuality, they tasted more like a light and fluffy baked potato on the inside while staying nice and crispy on the outside. In other words, perfection.

Another thing I really like about this method of making French fries is that because the oil was kept at relatively low temperatures, the fats were not too damaged and you can save and reuse the fat for another French fry making session. Which I'll probably be doing real soon....

Lemon Angel Food Cupcakes

2010-03-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

And now for something a little healthier. After making two Crack Pies and the Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream, I had a lot of egg whites sitting in my fridge. I toyed briefly with the idea of making macarons, but then I remembered that no matter how cute and pretty they look, they are still ridiculously time-consuming to make, and I don't even really like how they taste all that much. So instead, I decided to make angel food cake. And since I had a lemon to use up from my Boston Organics delivery, I decided to make lemon angel food cupcakes.

Just about every recipe for angel food cake lists cake flour as an ingredient. I already have unbleached all-purpose flour and white whole wheat flour in my pantry and really didn't feel like buying yet another type of flour. But luckily, a quick google for "cake flour substitute" brought me to this page, where I learned that I could add a tablespoon of cornstarch to a 1/2 cup measuring cup and then level off with all-purpose flour to make the equivalent of a 1/2 cup of cake flour.

I also don't have a sifter, either, but I just ended up using a fine-mesh metal sieve and two bowls to sift the flour and sugar together. At first I thought I could get away with just whisking the two together, which is what I usually do when I need to sift flour, but I realized pretty quickly that the powdered sugar was not going to unclump from mere whisking.

Oh, and I got to use my new lemon juicer for the first time! It's so much faster and cleaner than the reamer I've been using, and it was on sale too! Don't forget to roll the lemon around on a hard surface before cutting so that you can get more juice out of it.

Lemon Angel Food Cupcakes (based on this recipe from Cooking Light)
makes 16 cupcakes

1/2 cup cake flour (or 1 tablespoon corn starch plus 7 tablespoons all-purpose flour)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup egg whites (about 5 large eggs)
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated rind from 1 medium lemon

1/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
Freshly squeezed lemon juice from 1 medium lemon

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 16 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups. Set aside.

Lightly spoon cake flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Sift together flour and 3/4 cup powdered sugar into a medium bowl; repeat the procedure 2 times.

Beat egg whites and salt with a mixer at high speed until frothy (about 1 minute). Add cream of tartar, and beat until soft peaks form. Add 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Sprinkle flour mixture over egg white mixture, 1/4 cup at a time; fold in after each addition. Stir in vanilla and rind.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from pan; let cool completely on a wire rack.

To prepare frosting, beat butter with a mixer at high speed until fluffy. Gradually add 2 cups powdered sugar; beat at low speed just until blended. Add lemon juice; beat until fluffy. Spread lemon frosting over each cupcake.

Since I only have one muffin tin, I had to bake these in two batches, which meant I wasn't entirely sure how far to fill the muffin cups. I erred on the side of caution for the first batch and only filled them 3/4 of the way. They do rise in the oven, but then they shrink quite a bit once they cool, both in height and circumference. Don't be surprised if the cupcakes don't stay entirely round after they've cooled. So for the second batch I filled the cups with batter basically all the way to the top and was much more pleased with how those turned out after they had cooled.

I found that I could eat one of these cupcakes in about two bites; they were so soft and delicious! Actually, the texture really reminds me of the cake layer of lemon pudding cakes. And the frosting--when I first tasted it straight from the bowl, I wasn't that impressed with the taste or texture, but once it's on the cupcakes--is so mouth-watering good! It really reminded me of those lemon Girl Scout cookies or lemon coolers.

Mama Huang's Secret Beer Duck Recipe

2010-03-19T09:06:00.000-07:00

My mom made me promise not to post her recipe for her beer duck, but I figure it won't hurt to show you some pictures, in the tradition of the Feng Family Secret Peking Duck Recipe. It's a really easy recipe that only uses 5 ingredients (6, if you count water) and produces a really tender, super-flavorful duck. Best of all, you can harvest the duck fat at the end and the resulting drippings can totally be re-used for other recipes like xiao long bao. I'm thinking of trying to make Taiwanese meat stew from the drippings I have sitting in my fridge right now....

Mis en place (can you figure out the 5 ingredients?)

15 minutes in

30 minutes in

1 hour in

1 hour 30 minutes in (heehee, I think it's funny how the duck looks like it's embarrassed and trying to cover its private parts here)

2 hours in

Not the prettiest thing in the world at the end because the meat is literally falling off the bones, but so, so yummy. And look at all that delicious duck fat floating on top! I can't wait to try this cold fat method of making French fries with it!

P.S. I have been known to share secret duck recipes with people who have gotten me really, really good Red Sox tickets. I'm talking about Opening-Day-against-the-Yankees good. Just so you know. ;)

Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream

2010-03-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make a special ice cream for St. Patrick's Day, but couldn't decide between Guinness Milk Chocolate ice cream or Baileys Irish Cream ice cream, so I took a poll on Facebook. I got 4 votes for Guinness, 8 votes for Baileys, 3 votes for both, and 1 vote for corned beef and cabbage ice cream. Thanks, Ed. =P It was pretty interesting that all the guys (except for Ed) voted for the Guinness, and all the women, except for one, voted for the Baileys.

I ended up making the Guinness Milk Chocolate ice cream because it only needed 4 egg yolks, vs. the 6 needed for the Baileys, and also because I needed to buy some beer to make my mom's beer duck. And also because I was just curious about what Guinness Milk Chocolate ice cream would taste like (I'd already had the Häagen-Dazs version of Baileys).

Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream (from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, via flamingobear)
makes about one quart

7 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup whole milk
½ cup sugar
Pinch of coarse salt
4 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup Guinness (I used Guinness Draught)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the chocolate pieces in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

Heat the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan until hot and steamy. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Temper the yolks by slowly and gradually pouring in the warm milk mixture. Whisk constantly so that you don’t scramble the eggs. Then scrape the warmed egg yolk mixture back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (which will be at about 170-175°F on an instant-read thermometer). Pour the custard through the strainer over the milk chocolate, then stir until the chocolate is melted. Once the mixture is smooth, whisk in the cream, then the Guinness and vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight – until the mixture is 40°F. Then freeze it in your ice cream maker. This ice cream is very soft coming out of the ice cream maker. It hardens somewhat in the freezer but maintains an almost soft-serve consistency due to the alcohol content. It melts quickly, so eat fast!

So let me first say that I'm not really a big fan of the taste of beer or milk chocolate. I was hoping that the two flavors together would meld into something that's greater than the sum of its parts, but in the end, what I taste is beer and milk chocolate. I think I was trying to taste the beer, though, so its sharpness was very apparent to me. I bet if you like the taste of beer and milk chocolate, you'd love this ice cream.

Then I had the brilliant idea of adding some Baileys on top, just to see how that would taste. And let me tell you, that totally transported me away to this little green island to the west of England where leprechauns roam and rainbows end with pots of gold. This, my friends, was pure awesomeness. I think next year, I might try to make both the Guinness Milk Chocolate ice cream and the Baileys Irish Cream ice cream and swirl them together to make an Irish Car Bomb ice cream. But for this year, I'll just keep enjoying my Irish Car Bomb Sundae. ;)

Happy Pi Day

2010-03-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I told myself I wouldn't make this. Even though it was one of the most delicious things I had ever tasted, and I pretty much had all the ingredients for it already, I still told myself, "Self, you can not make this pie." Because you see, I'm trying to eat healthier. After the last two posts, I figured it was time to start posting something healthier. But then, I realized, Pi Day is coming up. And I have a birthday party and a potluck dinner to go to. And this recipe is for two pies. And well, when the stars align....

This is not an quick and easy recipe to make. Before you even get to making the filling or even the crust, first you have to make the cookies that go into the crust. But it's so worth it. This pie? Costs $44 at Momofuku Milk Bar. Forty-four bucks! And that's not including the shipping and handling if you don't happen to live in NYC. So do yourself a favor and just make it yourself.

Momofuku's Crack Pie (from the LA Times)
Makes 2 pies (6 to 8 servings each)

Cookie for crust

2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 ounces) flour
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) sugar
1 egg
Scant 1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) rolled oats

Heat the oven to 375° F.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy.

Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.

With the mixer running, beat in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined. Stir in the oats until incorporated.

Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.

Crust

Crumbled cookie for crust
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 1/2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together). Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins. Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins. Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.

Filling

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (3/4 ounce) milk powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 egg yolks
2 prepared crusts
Powdered sugar, garnish

Heat the oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.

Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air.

Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.

Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325° F and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown (similar to a pecan pie), about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.

Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The pies are meant to be served cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

I actually made all the cookies (enough for two pies) but made each pie separately on separate days since I only have one pie pan. Because the volumetric measurements are kind of hard to divide in half, I ended up weighing the ingredients that had weights listed for them. From what I read on the interwebs, it seems like the toughest part about making this pie is figuring out how much time to bake it for and at what temperatures. I pretty much just followed the LA Times guidelines and baked it for 15 minutes at 350° F, reduced the heat to 325° F, and continued baking for another 20 minutes. At this point it was still "slightly jiggly and golden brown".

It really is important to chill this pie. I ended up cutting out a slice because I wanted to try to take a picture of it while I still had daylight. The pie was still just a little above room temperature, and not completely solid yet. I did take a bite at that point and thought it just tasted okay. When I tried it later after it had been thoroughly chilled in the fridge, it was much, much better. The texture had condensed, and the flavors just gelled better as well.

I had toyed with the idea of substituting store-bought oatmeal cookies for the crust to save some time, but ultimately, I'm glad I didn't. The filling itself is so sweet that you need the crust to be more of a blank canvas rather than try to compete. A lot of people at the party described this as tasting like "pecan pie without the pecans". I bet this would be even better if there was a sprinkle of sea salt on top, and I'd be really curious if this could be lemon-ized so it was kind of like a lemon bar. On crack.

Bacon Fat Caramels

2010-03-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

When I first read about Humphry Slocombe's lard caramels, my first thought was, why didn't they just use bacon fat instead of lard? After all, candied bacon was all the rage already, and wouldn't bacon fat caramels sound so much more appetizing than lard caramels? And for those of you who think bacon fat caramel sounds disgusting, well, we don't have to be friends anymore. ;)

So I made sure to save as much bacon fat as I could from the bacon I used for the bacon caramel corn. I ended up with a little over 7 tablespoons of fat from about 10 oz. of uncooked bacon. I searched on-line to see if anyone else had posted a recipe for bacon fat caramels, but the only one I found used sweetened condensed milk instead of cream. I usually like sweetened condensed milk in my desserts, but it is a pretty strong flavor, and I really wanted the bacon flavor to shine through, so I ended up using a recipe for fleur de sel caramels and just replaced the butter with bacon fat.

Bacon Fat Caramels (adapted from a recipe on Epicurious)
makes about 40 candies

1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons bacon fat
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water

Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then lightly oil parchment.

Bring cream, bacon fat, and salt to a boil in a small saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.

Boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan, until mixture is a light golden caramel.

Carefully stir in cream mixture (mixture will bubble up) and simmer, stirring frequently, until caramel registers 248°F on thermometer, 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into baking pan and cool 3 hours. Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, twisting 2 ends to close. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Optional: Sprinkle diced, cooked bacon and/or sea salt on top of the caramel when it is still slightly soft.

I actually didn't have any wax paper but found that wrapping the caramels in parchment paper worked fine. The caramels were pretty greasy, but I think that was more because of the oil I used to grease the parchment rather than from the bacon fat itself. I did notice that at room temperature, the caramels are really quite soft, so I would definitely keep these chilled until you serve them.

As for the taste, some people have said it tastes like bacon drenched in maple syrup. Others have said that they didn't even taste the bacon until they bit into the part that had a bit of diced bacon in it. I did prefer the pieces that I sprinkled sea salt (I used Maldon sea salt) on more than the pieces that just had diced bacon because I think the texture worked better with the sea salt. Although, I did press all the fat out of the diced bacon, so maybe if they weren't so dry, it would have worked better.

Oh, and since I had two leftover butter wrappers after making the bacon caramel corn, I cut them up to wrap some of the caramels. I kind of like how they look, even though it's false advertising.

Bacon Caramel Corn

2010-02-26T04:27:00.000-08:00

Author's note: I just woke up from this beautiful dream where I was staying at this hotel (true) in NYC (also true) where I was possibly going to be snowed in (dreadfully true), and the hotel had a restaurant run by Tony Maws (owner of Craigie on Main and so, so disappointingly false). See, if that were true, I would have had absolutely no problems with being stuck in that hotel because I knew I would at least be fed well. But alas, I am staying at a hotel that doesn't even have a true restaurant attached to it. And if I get stuck anywhere in NYC, it will probably be at LaGuardia, which has even less of a restaurant attached to it. Anyway, I think Chef Maws might approve of this recipe because not only does it not waste any part of bacon (and I even used Trader Joe's uncured bacon), I also used organic popcorn!

It starts with the best and healthiest of intentions. When I saw that Boston Organics was offering organic popcorn as an add-on, I thought, "Ooh! I love popcorn; I should order some!" And then once I received it, I thought, I could use my air popper (thanks, Susan, I'm still using it after all these years!) to pop this. But then the evil food fairy that sits on my left shoulder said, "Yes, you could, but what's the unhealthiest thing you could do with this?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you bacon caramel corn.

With all the hoopla over bacon the past couple of years, I figured (correctly) that I couldn't have been the first person to come up with the idea and googled for a recipe. I used the one I found on bunrab.com, and the only changes I made were omitting the almonds, using a cup of light brown sugar and a cup of dark brown sugar instead of 2 cups of golden brown sugar, and popping the popcorn in bacon fat, just because I had some and wanted to see what popcorn popped in bacon fat tasted like.

Bacon Caramel Corn (based on bunrab's recipe)
makes 3 pints

1/2 pound bacon
1/3 cup organic popcorn kernels*
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar (I used 1 cup light and 1 cup dark just because)
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cut bacon into a fine dice and fry until crisp. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat.

Heat the bacon fat in a large pot with a cover. Add 3 popcorn kernels and cover. Listen for all three kernels to pop, and add the rest of the popcorn kernels. Cover and shake until popping stops. Put popped corn in a non-stick roasting pan, making sure to remove the unpopped kernels.

Preheat oven to 200°F.

Heat butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan over medium high heat until it reaches 300°F on your candy thermometer.

Remove from heat, stir in baking soda and bacon (the caramel will explode in volume at this point so make sure you use a large enough saucepan) and pour this caramel mixture over the popcorn (do this quickly so that the caramel doesn’t cool and stiffen).

Stir the mixture with a couple wooden spoons and place in the oven for a total of an hour rearranging the popcorn to evenly distribute the caramel and bacon every 15 minutes. Add more salt (if necessary) during this process. Cool and break into bite-sized pieces.

*Popping 1/3 cup of organic popcorn kernels gave me ~6 cups popped corn plus quite a few unpopped kernels. I'd guess if you are using a gourmet popping corn you may need to use less than 1/3 cup of kernels to get 6 cups of popped corn, which is the amount you need for this recipe.

So I tried some of the bacon fat-popped corn before dousing it with the caramel, and while I could taste a whiff of bacon, I personally think butter pairs better with popcorn. Bacon and caramel, however, pair together wonderfully (a fact which I will devote the next post to). Do I really need to describe how awesome bacon, caramel, and popcorn taste together? It's so good I had to hide this from some of my vegetarian friends for fear they'd give up their convictions just to try some. See what a good friend I am?

Faux Momofuku Brussels Sprouts

2010-02-22T13:10:00.001-08:00

I remember when I was growing up in elementary school, one of the two vegetables most hated by my peers (the other being lima beans) were brussels sprouts. Because of that, I never even tried a brussels sprout (or a lima bean for that matter) until much later in life, probably college. I do remember after trying my first brussels sprout thinking that they were absolutely delicious and so extremely cute, like a baby cabbage.

<Aside> The vegetable I truly detested in elementary school were green beans. I couldn't stand the smell of them when they were being served in the school cafeteria. I still don't really like them this day, but I can handle them when they're cooked fresh Asian style (stir-fried with garlic) or smothered with the sodium-bearing medium that is cream of mushroom. </Aside>

I'm lucky enough to get to go to Manhattan for work every month or two but I'm took chicken to go downtown by myself since I usually stay uptown. So when a co-worker and fellow foodie joined me on my last trip, I told her in no uncertain terms that we were going to go to a Momofuku for dinner. I've been wanting to try the steamed pork buns forever! After a bit of research, I decided to go to the Momofuku Ssam Bar because the Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar was just next door, and I also wanted to try the chess pie and cereal milk.

After all the hype about the steamed pork buns, it's probably not that surprising that I wasn't totally blown away by them, but I most certainly was a huge fan of the fried brussels sprouts. They were served with a mint and fish sauce dressing and topped with these crunchy, seasoned pieces of puffed rice, like Rice Krisipies. As soon as I got home, I had to google for the recipe to see if I could try to recreate the dish. Luckily, there was a version on Epicurious that roasted the sprouts instead of deep frying them, since I dislike deep frying at home. (And I totally missed the fact that those brussels sprouts had been deep fried!)

I decided to skip the whole puffed rice bit so simplicity's sake. And while the mint in the original version added a very interesting note to the sauce, but I didn't really feel like buying some just for this recipe, and the same goes for the cilantro stems and Thai chiles. Plus, I still very much dislike cilantro. So I simplified the recipe even more by making the dressing with just the fish sauce, sugar, water, and garlic. Oh, and instead of roasting the sprouts in oil and then tossing them with butter, I just roasted them in duck fat because I had some on hand. And it's okay if the leaves start coming off of the sprouts when you're halving them. Throw them in along with everything else because they'll get really nice and crispy and totally be first thing you'll want to pop in your mouth when these come out of the oven.

Faux Momofuku Brussels Sprouts (very much inspired by David Chang's recipe on Epicurious)
makes enough for two as a side, or one hungry girl

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved lengthwise
2 tablespoons duck fat, melted (or regular canola oil)
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 tablespoon minced garlic

Preheat oven to 450°F with a rack in the upper third of the oven. Trim and halve the Brussels sprouts, toss with oil, and roast, cut side down on baking sheet, for 20-35 minutes, depending on size and desired taste. They should brown but remain somewhat firm.

Meanwhile, stir together the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl. Heat in the microwave for a minute to dissolve the sugar.

When sprouts are done, transfer to a serving bowl and add just enough dressing to coat.

That's it! You won't believe the depth of flavor you'll get from so few ingredients. They were so good I just kept eating them with my hands instead of taking the time to get a fork. The only downside to this is that the fish sauce can be quite stinky, especially if you're just smelling it and not eating any so you don't get the oral context for what your nose is telling you (kind of like how dumplings can be smelly if you're not the one eating them; a fact which I was unaware of for most of my life because I was usually the one eating them!).

Honestly, I think I might have liked these better than the Momofuku version because the mint in the original kept jumping out and saying, "Here I am! I am mint!" And nobody likes to be interrupted when eating something this yummy.

Nutella Ice Cream

2010-02-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

It was World Nutella Day a couple of weeks ago; a day I'd love to celebrate but always seem to forget about until I start reading about it in everyone else's food blog. I first heard about Nutella in high school when one of my friends came back from a trip to Europe and told me about this amazing chocolately spread that they had on bread almost every day. But I don't think it was until college that I finally got to try it when I saw it for the first time at Wegmans. Ah, Wegmans. Where every good thing comes from. Kinda like God. ^_^

This Nutella ice cream was one of the first ice creams I made when I got my ice cream maker. In fact, it may be the reason I got an ice cream maker in the first place. It has two ingredients. Two! Can you tell I like the simple recipes? Or rather, I like recipes with high yumminess to number of ingredients ratios. On a scale of one to ten, this one scores about a thousand in my book.

Nutella Ice Cream (from Chocolate and Zucchini)
makes about 3/4 quart

350 grams (1 1/2 cups) Nutella
410 grams (1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon) evaporated milk

Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Combine the Nutella and evaporated milk in a medium mixing bowl, and stir with a whisk until they become one, voluptuous and smooth. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled. Whisk again and churn in your ice cream maker.

Transfer to a container, cover, and freeze overnight or for several hours to harden.

I made a batch for a small party I hosted, thinking I'd have leftovers that I could use to take pictures of the next morning when I had sunlight. Yeah, that didn't happen. This stuff was gone before I could save any. So all I have are the pictures of when it was churning. But if you look at the blurry part of the ice cream (and not the lumpy, grainy part), you'll get an idea of how it tastes. It is smooth and voluptuous, just like Clotilde described. Other words I'd use to describe it are luscious and velvety. In fact, it's almost chewy, like Turkish ice cream. And since the only two ingredients are Nutella and evaporated milk, it tastes just like Nutella: rich cocoa and fragrant hazelnuts. The only thing is, it's so sweet, I might add even a little more evaporated milk next time. Clotilde's solution was to use an all-natural, organic hazelnut-cocoa spread. Anyone know where I can get some in Boston? Unfortunately, it may take a couple of more years before a Wegmans comes to Massachusetts....

p.s. For those who don't have an ice cream maker, Clotilde does explain how you can make this without one, although it's pretty labor intensive.

Lemon Pudding Cake

2010-02-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

The concept of a pudding cake--a dessert made from a single homogeneous batter that separates into two layers, one cake-like and one pudding-like, while baking--has intrigued me for a while, so when I found myself with a lemon in my Boston Organics delivery, I figured it was time to try Baking Bite's Lemon Pudding Cake.

It was easy to halve her recipe (which calls for 2 lemons), and instead of making one big cake, I was able to three individual size servings in little Pyrex cups. I filled them up about three-quarters of the way, and they didn't rise too much after baking.

Like magic, the batter separated into a dense lemony custard at the bottom of the dish and a light, fluffy sponge cake at the top. You can serve them either in the cups or unmold them so that the custard is on top.

Lemon Pudding Cakes (from Baking Bites)
makes 3 individual servings

1 egg, separated
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/3 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place a 9-inch cake pan, filled with about 3/4 inch of water, into the oven. Grease 3 small souffle cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, and salt. Add in egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest, milk and vanilla and whisk thoroughly. In a medium bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Stir egg whites gently into lemon mixture, until well combined.

Pour mixture into prepared souffle dish and gently place in water bath.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the cake has risen and begun to pull away from the sides of the dish.

This was so good, I ended up making another batch the next time I got a lemon from Boston Organics! I couldn't believe how good this tasted considering no oil is added, and the only fat comes from the egg. I did end up saving one overnight in the fridge, and it tasted just as good the next day, even when I ate it cold. I have a feeling I'll be making orange pudding cakes the next time I end up with an orange that I don't know what to do with.

Pear Bread

2010-01-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

Faced with a surfeit of pears from Boston Organics, I decided to make Smitten Kitchen's Pear Bread. I'd never eaten pear bread before, but after trying it, I'd describe it as banana bread, only without the bananas. I don't taste the pears at all, but the fruit does add a lot of moistness to the cake along with just the tiniest bit of the gritty pear texture. I actually substituted 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour with 1/2 cup of white whole wheat flour since I'm trying to use up the sack I bought by accident.

Pear Bread (from Smitten Kitchen)
makes 2 loaves or one tube cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 to 4 pears firm, ripe pears, depending on size (you’ll need 2 grated cups total, but don’t grate them until you are about to use them so that they don’t brown)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat your oven to 350°F and lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl, and stir with a fork to mix everything well. If you’re using nuts, scoop out about 1/4 cup of the flour mixture and combine it in a small bowl with the chopped walnuts, stirring and tossing to coat the nuts with the flour.

Peel and core pears, then grate them. You’ll want two grated cups total; set them briefly aside. In a medium bowl, combine the butter or oil, eggs, sugar, grated pear, nuts (if using), and vanilla, and stir to mix everything well. Scrape the pear mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until the flour disappears and the batter is evenly moistened.

Quickly scrape the batter into the prepared pans and bake at 350°F for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the bread is handsomely browned and firm on top and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

I ended up not adding the sprinkle of confectioner's sugar or glaze that Deb suggests because it was sweet enough as is. It's also pretty crumbly, so I didn't want to have to deal with another potential factor for messiness. I think if I were to make this again, I might add some chocolate chips to it (giving them the same flour coating treatment as the nuts so that they don't sink). Deb says in her post that the bread got better day after day. I'm not sure if I'd agree, although it certainly doesn't get worse. I'd say that it remains a good, homey slice of comfort. And if I wanted to be super decadent, I'd toast this and spread some honey butter on top.

Edited to Add (on 1/26/10): I take back what I said about this bread not getting better. I just had some for breakfast 3 days after I baked it, and I don't know what happened between yesterday and today, but it is definitely better today. It seems like the baking soda and salt are standing out a bit more leaving this tang on my tongue that demands more pear bread. I can't stop eating it!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Cinnamon Sage Brown Butter

2010-01-22T05:20:00.000-08:00

I had two sweet potatoes left from my Boston Organics delivery, so I decided to try to make sweet potato gnocchi. The only other time I had ever made gnocchi was when I made the ricotta gnocchi for the Daring Cooks challenge back in May. That was definitely a pretty complicated recipe, but the sweet potato gnocchi recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything was a lot simpler.

That recipe didn't mention what sauce to pair with the gnocchi, though, so I turned to Google for some inspiration. The first hit for a search for "sweet potato gnocchi" was Giada's "Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Cinnamon Sage Brown Butter". Can you say yum?

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Cinnamon Sage Brown Butter (based on Mark Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything and Giada De Laurentiis' recipe here)
makes 3-4 servings

1 lb. sweet potatoes (about 2)
Salt and pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter
15 fresh sage leaves
2 teaspoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg

Start boiling a pot of water.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into small 1" chunks. Place in a microwaveable bowl with a little water and cover. Microwave for five minutes or until the sweet potatoes are done. Drain, season with salt and pepper, and mash with a fork.

Add about a half cup of the flour and stir. Continue adding the flour in small increments until you get a dough that you can handle. You want to add as little flour as possible to keep the gnocchi from being too dense. Pinch off a small piece and drop into boiling water to make sure it will keep its shape.

Place the dough onto a floured counter top (or cutting board). Divide in half and roll each piece into a 1/2 inch wide snake. Cut the dough into 1 inch long pieces and roll over the tines of a fork. Place shaped pieces onto a floured plate without them touching one another.

Cook the gnocchi in the boiling water in batches. You don't want there to be more gnocchi in the pot than can cover the surface of the water. The gnocchi is done about a minute after it starts floating.

While the gnocchi is cooking, melt the butter in a separate small saucepan. Once it is melted, add the sage leaves and continue to cook until the milk solids in the butter have browned. Remove from heat and add the maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt to taste.

Toss the cooked gnocchi with the browned butter sauce and serve hot.

Leftovers can be refrigerated and pan-fried the next day for a slightly different texture.

I found dough could be quite sticky and gluey before I finally added enough flour for it to be workable. In hindsight, I probably should have drained the potatoes better before adding the dough. While this gnocchi was considerably heavier than the ricotta gnocchi I had made before, it was still a lot lighter than say, the big, thick Shanghainese and Korean rice cakes. The gnocchi itself didn't have much flavor, but the brown butter sauce more than made up for that. I really liked how the sage and maple syrup brought out the flavor of the sweet potatoes. What kind of surprised me was that I actually wanted to add a little more black pepper to this dish even though I normally don't really like black pepper.

I had some leftovers, which I pan-fried in the butter sauce (no additional oil needs to be added), although I removed most of the sage first and added it back in when the gnocchi was almost done so that it didn't burn. While I did like the light crispiness the pan-frying added to the gnocchi, I think it was better overall when it was fresh.

Kalua Pork

2010-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

Nope, that's not a typo. This isn't pork made with Kahlua. This is kalua pork, the Hawaiian roasted pork served at luaus. Traditionally, a whole salted pig is put into a pit filled with hot rocks and banana leaves and covered so that it can cook all day. I got to go to Hawaii years and years ago for a family reunion (relatives from Taiwan and the US met halfway) and still remember loving this dish. The pork was moist, fall-off-the-bone tender, and had a depth of flavor that I thought could only be delivered via cooking in a pit for hours and hours.

Luckily for those of us who don't have easy access to whole pigs, pits, hot rocks, and banana leaves, you can make kalua pork in a slow cooker with only 2 ingredients: pork butt and smoked salt! The first you can get from almost any grocer store; just make sure it'll fit into your slow cooker. Apparently, pork butt is actually the same thing as pork shoulder, so either would work.

I found smoked Hawaiian sea salt at Narrin's Spice and Salt in Cleveland's West Side Market. I had actually bought this a couple of years ago but never figured out what to use it in until now. This particular product has a blend of Hawaiian black and pink salt along with regular white sea salt. If you can't find smoked sea salt, you can also use liquid smoke with regular sea salt.

Kalua Pork
makes about 6 servings

2.5 lbs. pork butt (or shoulder)
2 tablespoons smoked Hawaiian sea salt

Using a steak knife, poke the pork all over and then rub the salt all over.

Place the pork in a slow cooker and cook on low for 20 hours, turning once halfway through. Pork is done when it can be easily shredded with a fork.

That's it! With only two ingredients and two lines of instructions, you'll be surprised how flavorful the finished product is. During the slow cooking process, all the fat starts to render out of the meat so that at the end, it's cooking in its own juices, a sort of pork confit if you will. While I wouldn't consider the top half of the meat (that isn't sitting in the juices) to be dry, it is drier and less salty than the bottom half. I tried to turn the meat again when it was done to try to even it out, but the pork was so tender, I wasn't sure I could get it flipped without totally mangling it. If I had had more time, I would've shredded all the meat and served it with the reserved juices on the side for people to add if they wanted. Instead, I just brought the whole thing to a potluck and served it with some shredded cabbage sauteed with garlic and rice, letting people shred off as much as they wanted.

Banana Bread Yeasted Waffles

2010-01-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

When I was originally looking for yeasted waffle recipes, I stumbled across this one for Banana Bread Waffles. I know, right? What an awesomely yummy idea! The more I thought about it, the more I was tempted to skip the waffle face off and just make these. But ordinances must be followed, so I saved this one for last. The only thing I changed was that I added some walnut pieces to the batter right before cooking since I had some lying around, and since I didn't have ground ginger or ground cloves, I added a pinch of allspice. Oh, and I halved the original recipe since I only had 2 bananas.

Banana Bread Yeasted Waffles (from seven spoons)
makes 2-3 servings

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 teaspoons yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of allspice
1 egg, beaten lightly
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana, about 1 1/2 bananas
1 tablespoon Greek yogurt
1/4 cup walnut pieces (optional)

In a small bowl, whisk together the butter, milk and vanilla. Set aside, the mixture should be warm but not hot.

In a large mixing bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, brown sugar, yeast, salt and spices. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, whisking until smooth. Stir in the beaten eggs. Cover the bowl loosely and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, but up to 24.

About 30 minutes before you want to make waffles, take the batter out of the refrigerator to come up to room temperature slightly. It should be doubled in size and the surface will be covered in bubbles.

When ready to begin, stir the sour cream into the mashed bananas and then mix the fruit and walnuts (if using) into the batter. It will deflate, but use a light, quick hand to thoroughly combine.

Heat your waffle iron and bake the waffles as per the manufacturer's instruction.

Serve with maple syrup and additional slices of fresh bananas and walnuts, if desired.

Leftovers can be frozen and then reheated in a toaster or in an oven; keep the heat low and an eye on them though, they brown quickly.

I found that I needed more than 30 minutes at room temperature for the batter to double, so I stuck it in a slightly warm oven for 15 minutes. In the end, I found these waffles to be more soft than crispy and the flavor wasn't very memorable. In fact, right now I'm thinking that griddling a slice of real banana bread on a waffle iron might be even better....

Gaufres de Leige (Belgian Waffles)

2010-01-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

I know I had said I'd try to post something more colorful, but I fear that won't be happening anytime soon. Because I have become obsessed with making waffles. Even after deciding I liked The Waffle of Insane Greatness better than Mark Bittman's Overnight Waffles, which many people said were the best waffles ever, I decided to give yeasted waffles another chance. Especially after I saw this post for "The Best Waffle You'll Ever Eat: Gaufres de Liege" on The Kitchn in one of their end of the year roundups. You can probably tell that I am quite influenced by hyperboles.

I really was excited to find a recipe for a real Belgium waffle that used turbinado sugar instead of pearl sugar since it's ever so much easier to find turbinado sugar in Boston. I didn't have any bread flour so I used regular all-purpose flour instead. I can't tell you how much of a difference it made, but I definitely did end up with a dough more than a batter at the end. The post mentions that any waffle iron should work as long as "the pockets are fairly deep". I'm not sure my waffle iron falls into that category, but I didn't notice any uncooked portions so don't let that deter you. Lastly, the recipe calls for the use of a stand mixer. I don't have a stand mixer. I'd love a stand mixer. I will gladly accept a stand mixer. But until then, I have a hand mixer, and that's what I used. Since the recipe did mention that the dough would be quite stiff, I switched out the usual beaters I use for batters and used the special beaters that the manufacturers stated would work better for stiff doughs. It worked, but I can definitely see why a stand mixer (or an extra hand) would have been ideal.

Gaufres de Liege (from Chichi on The Kitchn)
makes 12 small waffles

6 tablespoons warm milk (no hotter than 110°F)
1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar  
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 cups (230 grams) bread flour, sifted (all-purpose flour seemed to work fine for me)
1 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 medium egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup (4 oz) unsalted butter, at slightly cooler than room temperature
140 grams turbinado sugar, or pearl sugar if you choose
Cooking spray

Dissolve the sugar in the warm milk; then add the yeast. Make sure that the milk is not too hot, lest it kill the yeast instead of promoting its growth. Place a plate or some kind of cover on top of the bowl with the milk, sugar and yeast. Set aside for about five minutes. When you check on it, the yeast should have bubbled up, looking light brown and spongy.

Meanwhile, mix the sifted bread flour with the cinnamon, vanilla extract, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Pour in the yeast mixture; then add the whole egg and egg yolk. Mix on medium speed until it is fully combined. The dough will be yellow and stiff, yielding only slightly to a poke.

Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest in a warm place for about thirty minutes.

Beat in the butter piece by piece; you do not have to wait for the prior piece to be fully incorporated before adding the next. When the dough has incorporated about half of the butter, the mixture will be like a very thick, somewhat broken-up paste. If you keep engaging the mixer on medium-high speed, the dough will eventually become a cohesive whole, looking smoother and more feeling more elastic. Scrape the sides of the bowl if needed.

Kneading very gently, incorporate the sugar crystals just enough to get them evenly distributed. Work quickly so as not to soften the buttery dough too much.

Divide the dough into a dozen equal pieces, gently forming them into balls.

Place the balls of dough on a cutting board in a warmish place for fifteen minutes or so. During the last two minutes of this resting time, preheat your waffle iron until it is very warm, but not hot.

Spray the griddles with cooking oil. Place each ball of dough in a whole square or section of the waffle iron. Like regular waffle batter, the dough will start to puff up. Cook the waffles until the surface is golden to dark brown. Be sure that the waffle iron you are using is appropriately deep, or else the interior of the waffle will not be cooked through.

Set the waffles on a cooling rack as they come out of the iron to promote a crispy exterior. Serve immediately with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

Any leftover waffles, if they are not dark brown, can be carefully re-cooked in a toaster for approximately thirty to sixty seconds. Leftover waffles may also be kept in an airtight container between sheets of parchment paper, for up to three days.

My roommate declared these waffles better than the previous two. Personally, I think they're a whole other species of waffle so it's hard to compare. These seem more like cookies that I can eat with my hands rather than needing a plate, utensils, and maple syrup. I found that they were sweet enough (and a whole heck of a lot cleaner) to eat without the powdered sugar. The waffles didn't really seem to crisp up as much as get uniformly solid, but the turbinado sugar definitely kept its crunch and gave it a nice, fun texture.

Creamy Delicata Squash Soup

2009-12-30T06:48:00.000-08:00

And now with this entry I think my blog is officially almost monochrome. I shall have to try to make more colorful recipes again soon.

I needed to use up two more delicata squash that I received from Boston Organics and since it's been super cold lately, I googled for a soup recipe. I came across this one on allrecipes.com, and while I usually only try the recipes on there that have several hundred reviews, it seemed straightforward enough to try. I did make a couple of adjustments, however, since I didn't want to wait for the squash to fully cook via roasting. In the comments someone said they had microwaved the squash instead, which shaved off at least a good half an hour. The squash cooked unevenly so I ended up scooping out the done parts and re-microwaving the rest until it was done.And I substituted chicken broth for the vegetable broth and milk and half & half for the heavy cream (but only because I didn't have any).

Creamy Delicata Squash Soup (adapted from here)
makes 3-4 servings

2 delicata squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup half & half
2/3 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 dash nutmeg (optional)

Place the squash cut side down in a microwave-safe baking dish. Add 1/8" water to the dish and microwave on high for 7 minutes or until squash is soft.

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Add onion and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until onion is softened but not brown.

Scrape the squash out of the flesh and add to onions. Add the broth, half & half, and milk. Bring to a boil and then simmer, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes.

Puree the soup using an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of nutmeg, if you like.

Pureeing the soup made it really light and frothy. The consistency was slightly grainy like a potato soup, but it really wasn't very thick at all. I found that I barely had to add any salt to it, but then maybe that's because the chicken broth I used was already pretty salty. I think the nutmeg really brought out the sweetness of the squash. In fact, I can see this being a really versatile template for a squash soup. You could go the sweeter path and really roast the squash with some butter and maybe a little brown sugar. Or you could go the more savory route and use shallots instead of the onion and maybe throw in a little garlic or other fresh herbs. All in all, it was the perfect thing to have on a frigid day.

p.s. I made the croutons in the pictures by simply sauteeing some cubed wheat bread in butter. If I had really been clever, I would've cut the croutons in the shape of the squash seeds. =)

Homemade Waffle Face Off

2009-12-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

Ever since I tried my first Belgian waffle (with real pearl sugar!) from Mr. Crepes a few weeks ago, I've been wanting to make some waffles. My friend, Nicole, had left me her waffle maker when she moved away this past summer and I had yet to break it out. I was hoping to buy some pearl sugar from Mr. Crepes, but it turns out they no longer sell it there. So I settled for making regular waffles. But oh my, the many different "regular" waffle recipes that existed! I browsed through the waffles on TasteSpotting, The Kitchn, and looked up Alton Brown's recipe. I remembered an episode from Good Eats when he explained that the batter you want for pancakes and the batter you want for waffles are two completely different things since pancakes should be soft and fluffy and waffles should be crispy on the outside. Unfortunately, his recipe for the Basic Waffle included buttermilk as an ingredient, and I didn't really feel like buying something I don't usually use just to make this. But then I found a recipe titled, "Waffle of Insane Greatness". How could you not want to make those?

And then while talking to my friend, Helena, about my plan to make waffles, she recommended Mark Bittman's recipe for Overnight Waffles from How to Cook Everything (thank you, Ellen!), saying they were the best waffles she had ever had. That's when I decided it was time for another face off: Yeasted vs. non-yeasted waffles.

Obviously, as you can tell from the title, the Overnight Waffles need to be started the night before to give the yeast time to do it's thing. There are several steps to the recipe, and I followed everything to the letter (including separating the egg and whipping up the egg whites; is there anything more satisfying than whipping egg whites up to a soft peak by hand?) except that I halved the recipe. Hopefully it didn't alter the outcome too much.

Overnight Waffles (based on Mark Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything)
makes 2-3 servings

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Canola oil (for brushing on waffle iron)
1 egg

The night before, combine dry ingredients and stir in the milk, then butter and vanilla. The mixture will be loose and creamy. Cover and set aside overnight at room temperature.

The next morning, brush the waffle iron lightly with oil and preheat. Separate the egg and stir the egg yolk into the batter. Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold them gently into the batter.

Pour the batter onto the waffle iron just until the barely covered. Bake 3 to 5 minutes, depending on your iron. Serve immediately with maple syrup and butter.

I thought it was interesting that in the book, Mark mentions that his favorite type of maple syrup is Grade B which is also the cheapest. Maple syrup is pretty darn expensive even up here in New England, but I found that Harvest sells Grade B maple syrup in bulk!

It looks like the "Waffle of Insane Greatness" recipe is from a restaurant called Aretha Frankenstein's in Tennessee. I have a feeling I will never get to go and try the originals, but having the recipe is good enough for me.

Waffle of Insane Greatness (courtesy of the Food Network and Aretha Frankenstein's)
makes 4 servings

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add the milk, vegetable oil, egg, sugar, and vanilla and mix well. Let the batter site for 30 minutes.

Preheat the waffle iron. Do not use non-stick spray on the waffle iron; the oil in the batter will allow the waffle to release easily. Follow the directions on your waffle iron to cook the waffles. Serve immediately with butter and syrup.

It's true about not needing to grease the waffle iron for these. If you let the batter sit long enough, the oil will even start to separate. If that happens, just stir the batter again and the oil will re-incorporate. I chose not to halve this recipe because it would've been a lot harder to do so and also because it seemed like the main ingredients (flour, milk, oil, and egg) were almost identical in quantity.

As you can see from the pictures above, the Waffle of Insane Greatness browned more uniformly and had a more defined shape. This translated into a crisper waffle. It also had an eggier taste than the Overnight Waffles which I thought had a pretty strong yeasty taste. The texture of the Overnight Waffles was definitely fluffier but I didn't really get the crispiness.

I decided to try to make them side by side so that they had the same amount of time on the iron. Again you can see (below) that the Waffle of Insane Greatness had a more defined shape and that the Overnight Waffles had more air bubbles, but now you can see that the Overnight Waffles actually brown quicker than the Waffle of Insane Greatness. (Please ignore the fact that there are holes in the Waffle of Insane Greatness; that's more due to user error as you can see in the picture with the waffle iron.)

Personally, I had a slight preference for the Waffle of Insane Greatness because it was able to get the crispy texture I wanted. Too many air bubbles in the Overnight Waffles meant it absorbed the maple syrup like a sponge and got way too soggy way too fast. Also, I thought the yeasty taste was a little too strong for me. One of my roommates preferred the Overnight Waffles, though, and my other roommate's sister preferred the Waffle of Insane Greatness.

As a final experiment, I mixed the last of both batters together and made an Overnight Waffle of Insane Greatness. This turned out to be the perfect waffle for me. The yeasty flavor was neutralized and turned into a more malted flavor. The waffle was crispier and had less air bubbles than the Overnight Waffles but was fluffier than the regular Waffle of Insane Greatness. If I ever really, really wanted to make the perfect waffle, I would make these two recipes and combine them again. But being the lazy person I am, I'll probably just make the Waffles of Insane Greatness again and maybe try separating the egg and whipping up the egg whites before folding them in.

Apple and Pear Cake FAIL

2009-12-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

I needed to use up some more apples and pears from my Boston Organics delivery, so I decided to try Smitten Kitchen's Mom's Apple Cake. Except I didn't have a tube pan. Or a bundt pan. And I only had 2 apples and 2 pears. And I accidentally bought white whole wheat flour instead of my usual unbleached all-purpose flour. A normal person might have decided these reasons were enough to stop, but oh no, I had to go ahead and try to make the cake anyways.

First conversion: I figured I could multiple all the ingredients by 3/4 to account for the fact that I only had 4 pieces of fruit instead of the 6 required for the recipe.

First fail: You know how people say baking is like chemistry and that everything needs to be measured precisely? Well, I had to adjust some of the calculated measurements just so I could measure them. And I ended up with a really, really, really thick batter. Like closer to cookie dough than cake batter. I don't think that's right.

Second conversion: Instead of using a tube pan, I used a normal square pan. In the original post, Deb says that you can probably make the cake in a 9"x13" cake pan if you don't have a tube pan. I figured since I was reducing the quantities in the recipe, I could get away with a 9" square pan.

Second fail: I think the reason this cake calls for a tube pan is because it take a long time for the middle to bake. And maybe longer because I had that ridiculously thick batter. The original recipe says to bake for 1.5 hours or until a tester comes out clean. Um, at 1.5 hours, the middle of the cake was just barely starting to set, and the edges were all getting burnt.

(By the way, The Kitchn just posted a hack on what to do if you don't have a tube pan!)

Third conversion: I only had 1/4 cup all-purpose flour left, so I used that and then used whole wheat flour for the rest of the flour. I figured, it's a cake with fruit so it's already slightly healthy anyways. Can't make that much of a difference right? Um, yeah. Don't ever do what I did, okay? Unless you like eat really dense cardboard.

But, I was still able to get some decent pictures of the thing. And I still did eat it. At least, the top half of it. The bottom half was unsalvageable. Hmmm, I should've taken a picture of what was leftover in the pan.

Anyways, instead of posting the fail recipe, I'm just going to link over to Smitten Kitchen again. Because she has the correct recipe AND gorgeous pictures.

Tim Tam Slam Ice Cream

2009-12-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I was having dinner with this other girl who kept talking about all the homemade ice cream she made. After repeated mentions, I couldn't stand it anymore and threw down the proverbial gauntlet and challenged her to an "ice cream throw down". We rounded up two other friends who also made their own ice cream and drew up a list of rules. We were all to make 3 churned, frozen desserts: one vanilla ice cream for a baseline, one sorbet, and one free-for-all. Forty people came to judge, and I'm proud to say that I won the vanilla and sorbet categories with my "Triple Vanilla Threat" (frozen custard made with vanilla bean, vanilla sugar, and vanilla bourbon) and Coconut Lime Sorbet, which is really the simplest and yummiest sorbet recipe ever. One of these days if I ever get a chance to take a picture of it before I devour it, I promise I'll share it with you.

So for the one category that I lost, I had made a Tim Tam Slam ice cream. At the time, Tim Tams had yet to be imported into the US, so I actually had saved a package that a co-worker from Australia had sent special to me after I told her how much I loved the cookies. I was introduced to Tim Tams back when I lived in Taiwan by a couple from New Zealand. Crunchy chocolate cookies sandwiching a smooth chocolate mousse all dipped in rich chocolate fudge. You can really only eat one or two at time before going into chocolate overdose.

(This is actually a picture I took of the Tim Tams I had 2 years ago; the ones from Pepperidge Farms have a different packaging.)

But the best way to enjoy a Tim Tam is to do the Tim Tam Slam! This involves biting off the ends of the rectangular cookie and using it as a straw to sip up some coffee (or milk or tea). Just as the liquid reaches your lips, you toss the whole cookie in your mouth and close your eyes in delight as you experience the Tim Tam Slam.

Luckily for us, Tim Tams are now available stateside, at least during the colder months of the year, through Pepperidge Farms. I spied some at the local Shaws the other day, and decided it was high time to try to make a better Tim Tam Slam ice cream, because the Tim Tam Slam really deserved to be enshrined in such a hallowed way.

The previous time, I had tried David Lebovitz's recipe for making the coffee ice cream and used Dunkin' Donuts' hazelnut coffee beans. For whatever reason, the ice cream didn't really turn out as I had hoped. It's been over two years now so I can't remember exactly what I didn't like about it, but it was just off, somehow. As a note, my favorite coffee ice cream is the first one I ever tried: Breyers. It's the whole reason I even like coffee.

Since I've moved away from making frozen custards, I decided it was time to try Jeni's recipe for making no-egg ice cream again since let's face it, the last time was kind of a fail. And I think I know what the issue was last time. I bet I didn't let the mixture get a chance to cook enough after adding the corn starch so that it thickened before cooling it. Because let me tell you, when it starts boiling and thickening, you better get that pot off the heat fast or else it'll boil over. And I'm sure I'd have remembered something like that happening before.

Tim Tam Slam Ice Cream (based on Jeni's ice cream recipe here)
makes about 1 quart

3 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon corn starch
3 1/2 cups half and half
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon instant coffee crystals (I used Nescafe)
1 package Tim Tams

In the bottom of a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese until soft and loose and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of the half and half, making sure the cornstarch is dissolved. Pour the rest of the half and half into a large pot and whisk in the sugar, corn syrup, and coffee crystals. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and then simmer, stirring frequently, for 4 minutes.

Remove from heat and whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return the pot to medium-high heat, bring back to a boil, and cook for 1 more minute, stirring or whisking constantly, until the mixture is slightly thickened.

Pour the milk mixture into the bowl with the cream cheese and whisk until the cream cheese is combined. Add the salt. Set the bowl into a larger bowl filled with snow or an ice bath and cool, stirring every few minutes, until the liquid is at least down to room temperature. Transfer the inner bowl to the refrigerator and allow to chill thoroughly.

Roughly chop the Tim Tams into small bits.

Once the ice cream base is chilled, freeze in an ice cream maker, adding the chopped Tim Tams at the very end. Transfer the ice cream to a container and freeze for several hours until firm.

I liked this version of the Tim Tam Slam much better, although it still doesn't taste as good as Breyer's coffee ice cream. Maybe it's something to do with the amount of coffee flavoring or the way I introduced it. Perhaps it would've been better to add espresso powder or coffee extract. But the addition of the Tim Tam bits definitely compensates for any faults the ice cream itself may have. I actually used caramel Tim Tams, which added a nice non-chocolatey dimension to the ice cream, kind of similar to Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. The only thing is the caramel gets pretty hard when frozen, but does eventually soften in your mouth.

Wah Guay, or Taiwanese Rice Cake with Meat Sauce

2009-12-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted any recipes from my mom, and I just received a random request for this recipe, so I'd like to introduce you to wah guay, of Taiwanese rice cake with meat sauce. The name of the dish is Taiwanese, so I don't even know how to correctly pronounce it, much less romanize the spelling. My mom makes this dish a lot for pot lucks, and it's one of her specialties; I believe she even made up the recipe herself. All the flavoring comes from the meat sauce which is really pretty salty plus a little sweetness, heat, and umami. You need all of the saltiness because the rice cake is just steam-baked rice flour and water. That's it. But if you make it right, it should come out with a thick, custardy texture that jiggles like Jell-o.

Make sure that you use a soy sauce paste for the topping and not regular soy sauce. Soy sauce paste is more viscous and also slightly sweeter than the normal stuff. We used it a lot growing up in dipping sauces for things like boiled dumplings and hot pot because the water that inherently deposits with each dip wouldn't dilute the soy sauce paste as much as it would with normal soy sauce. And if you can find the sweet chili paste, definitely try that. It's barely spicy, but does cut through the saltiness of the meat sauce just enough. In a pinch, I guess a little sriracha sauce could do.

Wah Guay
makes 24 servings

1 (16 oz.) bag of rice flour (not the glutinous kind)
1 lb. ground pork
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons fried shallots
4 tablespoons rice wine
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoons five spice powder
6 tablespoons soy sauce
Soy sauce paste or chili soy sauce paste
Sweet chili paste (optional)
Cilantro (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 °F and lightly grease a 9" x 13" casserole dish.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the rice flour with 2 cups of water using a spatula. Continue stirring and add 9 cups boiling water in a continuous stream. Once fully incorporated, transfer to the casserole dish, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and bake for 45 minutes.

In a medium-sized pot, heat oil on high until hot. Add the shallots and fry for 20 seconds. Add the pork, rice wine, sugar, five spice powder, and soy sauce and continue to cook until meat is no longer pink, breaking the pork into smaller pieces. Cover, lower the heat, and let simmer for 2 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let sit covered.

Once the rice cake is done, top with the meat sauce. Drizzle with soy sauce paste and sweet chili paste and top with cilantro, if desired.

I am not a big fan of cilantro, so my mom usually just garnishes three-quarters of the dish with the cilantro, leaving an unblemished quarter for me. Isn't my mommy the best?

One note I should make, I tried making this once in grad school in a toaster oven and the rice cake never really "set". And even my mom has said that it hasn't set correctly for her on a few occasions. Neither of us could figure it out; I'm guessing it has to do with having the perfect ratio of water to rice flour and the ideal conditions for steaming and baking in the oven.

Stuffed Delicata Squash

2009-12-04T08:58:00.001-08:00

I recently received two delicata squashes in my Boston Organics delivery. Now I know what to do with yellow/zucchini squash, and I have a favorite recipe for butternut squash, but this was the first time I had work with this particular kind of squash. Luckily, The Kitchn had a post recently about making stuffed squash, which I thought would be the perfect thing to do with these two lovelies.

The only thing is, their recipe called for some type of protein (chopped ham, bacon, sausage, etc.) to be added, and I just didn't have anything like that, nor did I really think ham belonged in a stuffed squash. Bacon or sausage, I can see, but I didn't want to go out and buy some just for this recipe. They suggested using tofu for a vegetarian version, but that sounded just as weird, if not weirder than using ham. And then I realized, I had the perfect ingredient sitting in my freezer. Can you guess what it is?

One of my vegetarian friends had brought over Vegetable Masala Burgers from Trader Joe's for a barbecue we had over the summer. There had been no time or room on the grill to cook them, so they've been sitting in my freezer until now. I figured the burgers would already be seasoned, and after microwaving them and mashing them up with a fork, they would be just about the right consistency to stuff a squash with!

Veggie Burger Stuffed Delicata Squash
makes 2 servings

2 delicata squash
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 veggie burger patties
Butter (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Halve the squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and pulp with a spoon. Brush the cut side with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast squash cut side up for 30 minutes or until soft when forked.

In the meantime, microwave the veggie burger patties for a minute or two until thawed. They don't need to be hot. Break up the patties with a fork.

Once the squash is done, remove from oven. Mound veggie burger stuffing in the squash cavities. Top with a pat of butter, if desired.

Return stuffed squash to oven and bake for another 10 minutes.

I really did like the taste of the masala burgers with the squash. If you wanted to add more texture to the stuffing, you could add toasted nuts or roasted sunflower seeds. If I were using a more traditional flavor of veggie burger, I might also sprinkle some cheese on top, but I think it would have been weird to mix cheese and masala.

Kettle Corn

2009-11-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

Each spring, I look forward to my first game of the season at Fenway Park. The last three years in a row, I've been lucky enough to get tickets to Opening Day, thanks to my wonderful, beautiful friends who really, really love me. And while the quality of food offered there is sorely lacking, I can never resist the kettle corn sold in the Grand Concourse. The aroma of the fresh popped corn plus the melted sugar is all the advertisement it needs. Of course, it's best when it's still hot, or at least warm, but sometimes all you get is the already-bagged kind which, let's face it, just doesn't compare.

I was craving some the other day, and since it is no longer baseball season, I figured I'd try making some, following Jen's recipe on Tiny Urban Kitchen. If you haven't read her food blog before, you should definitely check it out. I knew her personally before either of us started food blogging, and her pictures and the recipes she attempts are leagues beyond my own. Thankfully, this recipe is really quite simple!

Kettle Corn (from Tiny Urban Kitchen)
makes one big bowl, a little too much for one hungry, popcorn-loving girl, but probably not enough for two ;)

1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup popcorn kernels
1/4 cup sugar
Salt to taste

Put the oil in a pot (ideally a pot with handles and a cover!) and heat to medium high.

Put 3 kernels in the oil and wait for the three kernels to pop. When this happens, you know the oil is hot enough.

Add the rest of the kernels. They should be spread out in one thin layer at the bottom of the pot.

Cover and let pop; it should start popping almost immediately. Start shaking the covered pot around to let the kernels shake around so that the un-popped kernels can get to the bottom where it's hot and also so the popped popcorn doesn't burn.

When the popping seems to have slowed down a bit, carefully lift the lid and dump the sugar in.

Continue shaking the covered pot around, distributing the sugar and letting the rest of the kernels pop.

When it seems like the popping has slowed considerably (1-2 minutes), remove the pot from heat and let it cool. Add salt and stir the popcorn around to make sure the sugar and salt is evenly distributed.

Jen mentions that you can use more oil if you want (up to 1/3 cup) and more sugar if you like, but one of the things I like about kettle corn is how the little kiss of sweet and salty makes you crave more. Too much sugar and you might as well make caramel corn.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp

2009-11-26T18:12:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! What are you thankful for this year? Me, I'm thankful that I got to travel to a lot of different countries (Czech Republic, Bolivia, Aruba, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt!), for new friends that I've made, and that my brother got married to a wonderful girl!

I almost always staying in Boston for Thanksgiving since my home in Ohio is really too far away to drive to and too expensive to fly to for such a short break. But it's become tradition to celebrate with other Thanksgiving "orphans", and this year I went over to Oeimae, Yumi (thanks for the invite!), and Judy's apartment in Brookline for yet another potluck. This time, I wanted to use up the two pears and two apples I had gotten in my Boston Organics delivery, so I decided to make a apple-pear crisp. But just those 4 fruits didn't seem to be enough for the 9"x13" pan, so I bought a bag of fresh cranberries to add to the mix for some color and tartness.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp
makes 24 servings

2 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced (I used Fuji apples)
2 pears, peeled, cored, and sliced (I used one Bosc and one Concord pear)
1 bag fresh cranberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg
1 1/2 cups flour and 1 tablespoon flour, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss the apple and pear slices with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon flour. Add the cranberries and sugar. Toss to mix. Place in a 9"x13" baking dish.

In a large bowl, add the remaining ingredients and cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles a coarse meal. You can also use a food processor to do this, but I enjoy doing it with my hands.

Spread the topping evenly over the fruit. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

That last part of the recipe is key. Even though there's a whole cup of sugar in the fruit filling, the fresh cranberries are really quite tart. Eating this crisp with ice cream mellows out the fruit so that the sum is much greater than its parts.

This recipe can be adapted to other fruits as well. You can omit the cranberries and use more of the apples or pears. A peach or cherry crisp is another possibility, but you'd have to adjust the amount of sugar since those fruits are already quite sweet.

Nanaimo Bars

2009-11-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Yes, yes, I know. It's been almost 5 whole months since I posted. It's unforgivable really. But you see, the reason I started this blog in the first place was because my second love, the Red Sox, were taking their winter break and I wasn't traveling as much for work anymore so I needed something to occupy my time. And well, what do you know, it's that time of the year again! So please forgive me, and get ready to start drooling again!

Last week The Kitchn had a post on nanaimo bars (apparently pronounce nah-NAI-mo): a three-layer dessert bar with a cocoa coconut crust, vanilla custard middle, and chocolate top. With over 2 whole sticks of butter in the recipe, what's not to love? And I just happened to have all the ingredients except for the cream in my fridge and cupboard so I decided to make a batch for a pre-Thanksgiving potluck dinner.

Nanaimo Bars (adapted from City of Nanaimo via Eclectic Cook and The Kitchn)
makes 40+ bars

Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup sugar
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg beaten
1 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs
½ cups finely chopped almonds*
1 cup coconut*

Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add about a third of the hot mixture to the beaten egg a spoonful at a time to temper. Add the egg mixture to the pot and stir to cook and thicken (roughly 3 minutes). Pay careful attention to the mixture when cooking so that the egg does not curdle. If you start seeing any lumps, immediately remove from heat and keep stirring. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and almonds. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

Second Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons and 2 Tsp. cream*
2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder*
2 cups icing sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.

Third Layer
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator. Cut into 1 inch squares and serve slightly chilled.

*A note about the ingredients: the type of cream and coconut was not specified, and I ended up using light cream and sweetened, shredded coconut. And instead of using vanilla custard powder, I substituted with French vanilla instant pudding powder. Also, instead of using finely chopped almonds, I substituted with almond meal. I've never had one of these bars before, so I'm not sure if you could tell a difference in texture.

I found that the quantity of ingredients that the recipe calls for in the third layer to be barely enough to cover the middle layer. And even though the recipe calls for the third layer to cool before spreading over the second layer, I found that even when it was still warm it was getting quite viscous. I was afraid that if I waited for it to cool too much I wouldn't be able to spread it out so I ended up using it while it was still warm. Of course, then I found out the reason why you want to wait until it is cool is because the second layer can melt and start blending with the third layer. =(

At the potluck, everyone seemed to like the bars, and it was agreed that a 1 inch square bar was enough. As rich as the recipe is, I thought the bars were otherwise a little bland. Personally, I could have used a little salt in the recipe to round out the richness. I think either using salted butter or sprinkling the top with sea salt would've done the trick. Another direction I would go is to add almond extract to the custard layer to brighten it up a bit.

Curried Carrot Soup

2009-07-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

I got yet another bag of baby carrots in my Boston Organics delivery last week and suddenly remembered one way (other than carrot cake or carrot cake ice cream) that I've enjoyed carrots: in a curried soup. I don't even remember where I first tried it; I think it was either at Au Bon Pain or in one of the soup cartons from Trader Joe's. I just remembered that I couldn't really taste the carrots, which is exactly what I was looking for.

A quick google search gave me Rachael Ray's version as the first hit. It looked simple enough, but I added a few tweaks. I used half an onion and replaced the other half with a shallot since it was all I had. I also halved the amount of butter, added 2 teaspoons of fresh, chopped ginger, and replaced the sour cream with nonfat plain yogurt.

Curried Carrot Soup (adapted from Rachael Ray's recipe here)
makes 4-6 servings

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh peeled ginger, finely chopped
1 pound packaged baby carrots
2 (13.5 oz.) cans chicken broth
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
Nonfat plain yogurt
Snipped scallions (optional)

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions, shallots, ginger, and carrots and saute 5 minutes.

Add the chicken broth, curry and cayenne, and about 1 teaspoon salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes.

Using an immersion blender, carefully puree the soup. Alternatively, you can use a blender to puree the soup in small batches.

Ladle into bowls and top with a heaping spoonful of yogurt (or sour cream) and scallions.

If you don't have yogurt or sour cream, you can also add a swirl of cream into the soup to balance out the spices, but you'll lose the tanginess of the yogurt.

Daring Cooks Challenge #2: Homemade Bulgogi Dumplings

2009-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

My first thought after seeing the second Daring Cook's challenge was, "Why mess with perfection?" Jen from Use Real Butter had chosen Chinese dumplings as the challenge, which coincidentally, was one of my first posts on The Cooking of Joy. I've been making my mom's recipe for dumplings for as long as I can remember not only because it's my mom's but quite simple because it is the best-tasting dumpling I've ever had. In my opinion, it has the perfect ratio (1:1) of meat to vegetable and is just seasoned enough that you can serve it boiled with only some sriracha sauce for heat, if you want. So seriously, why mess with perfection?

But Jen's request to "try something different" if we'd made Chinese dumplings before echoed in my head as a challenge. Then when I came up with the idea to make kalbi using the kiwi, pear, and apple I had gotten in my Boston Organics delivery, I started thinking about making a beef dumpling filling with the same marinade. And using Romaine lettuce instead of napa cabbage as the vegetable since Romaine is traditionally eaten with kalbi and bulgogi (Korean marinated barbecued sirloin beef). And ssamjang (seasoned soybean paste) as the condiment. And thus, the bulgogi dumpling was born.

One of the other requirements for the Daring Cook's challenge was to make your own wrappers. Jen had posted a recipe that used warmed water instead of the boiling water recipe I was used to. Since I was doing something different anyways, I figured I'd try her recipe (using her mom's version to mix the dough) but I soon realized that I much preferred the boiling water version. The warm water version gave a really stiff dough that was much harder to work with. At first I thought that maybe I hadn't added enough water, but the recipe only called for 1/2 cup water for 2 cups of flour, and I had already added about 2/3 cup of water. So I ended up scrapping half of the warm water dough and making a half batch of the boiling water dough, which I've reprinted here. Using the boiling water and kneading the dough for a good five minutes allows the dough to develop a lot of gluten. Resting it for 20 minutes makes it even more pliable so that you should have no problems rolling out your wrappers and stretching them while wrapping.

Above is a side by side visual comparison of the two wrappers with the boiling water ones on the right. The reason for the color discrepancy is simply because I ran out of bleached all-purpose flour after making the warm water wrappers and used unbleached all-purpose flour for the boiling water ones.

Bulgogi Dumplings
makes about 56 dumplings

1 bundle bean thread vermicelli
1 lb. ground beef (I used 80% lean meat)
1/2 head romaine lettuce, washed and roughly chopped
3 scallions, roughly chopped
1/2 cup kalbi marinade
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
56 homemade dumpling wrappers (recipe below)

Soak the bean thread vermicelli in a bowl filled with hot water for 15 minutes.

While the vermicelli is soaking, use a food processor to mince the lettuce and scallions. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Squeeze out the excess water in the vermicelli and use the food processor to chop into about 1/2" pieces. Add to the mixing bowl.

Add the ground beef, marinade, and sesame oil and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Once you have your dumpling wrappers ready, prepare plates or trays with flour for dipping. Put a spoonful of the filling in the middle of a wrapper and fold in half. Seal center portion of the joined edges. Make two pleats on both the left and right side of the dumpling. Make sure that the whole thing is totally sealed and then dip the bottom in the flour and place on the tray. Here are step-by-step photos to show you how it's done, or you can check out this video, but ignore the part about wetting the edges. Since we are using fresh dumpling wrappers here, you can skip that step.

To pan-fry the dumplings, heat a frying pan on high and add oil once it is hot. Once the oil is hot, add the dumplings one at a time so that they are sitting upright. Once the bottoms are browned, add about a 1/2 cup of water (for 8 dumplings, my usual serving size). If you like your dumplings extra crispy, add 1 tablespoon of flour or cornstarch to the water and mix to get rid of the lumps before you add it to the pan. Be very careful as the steam coming off the pan may burn you. Cover and let cook for a few minutes until the water is almost all gone. Remove the lid and let the rest of the water cook off.

Homemade Dumpling Wrappers (adapted from here)
makes about 56 wrappers

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons cold water
Flour for dusting

Pour boiling water into the flour, quickly stir with a fork or chopstick, mix well, then add the cold water. Mix and knead into a soft dough about 5 minutes.

Cover with damp cloth or paper towel. Set aside and rest for 20 minutes.

Knead the dough for 1 minute and divide into 4 quarters. Roll one quarter into a long snake and pinch into about 1 inch lengths.

Dust flour on work surface. Roll each piece into a circle of about a 3 inch diameter. Try to make the edges thinner than the middle.

Instead of the usual soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar dipping sauce I like to have with my dumplings, I just served it with ssamjang. The intense saltiness of the season soybean sauce complemented the sweetness of the marinade, but I have to admit both flavors were a little too strong, so I tried wrapping some Romaine lettuce around a dumpling, similar to how I like to eat my kalbi.

This combination ended up being perfect as now there was a balance of all the oral senses: taste (sweet and salty), temperature (hot and cold), and texture (crunchy and soft).

So once again, the Daring Cooks Challenge forced me to try something I normally wouldn't have made, which is the point of a challenge, I suppose. To be honest, I'll probably continue to stick with my mom's dumpling recipe and store bought wrappers, but it was pretty fun to make these, and I'm looking forward to next month's challenge!

Kale Chips

2009-06-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to score tickets to all three Red Sox Yankees games this week, which also meant I'd have three days of Fenway food temptation to deal with. I mean, I love those Fenway franks as much as the next girl, but three days in a row of hot dogs for dinner is a little overboard, even for me. So I decided to use up the kale I'd gotten in my last Boston Organics delivery and make a little snack for myself (and the 2 vegetarians I was going with).

This recipe is super duper simple, and I've even pared it down from the first time I made them. The first time I'd read somewhere that you could toss the kale in a vinaigrette before baking them, but I found that it was too much liquid and ended up having to bake the chips a lot longer just to get them crispy. Yesterday I tried making them with only oil and salt, and they came out perfect. They kind of remind me of Korean roasted seasoned seaweed, only not as pretty.

Kale Chips
makes a sandwich bagful

1 bunch kale
Cooking spray
Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 °F.

Wash the kale and tear into bite-sized pieces. Dry well in a salad spinner.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray liberally with cooking spray. Add the kale pieces in an even layer and spray with more cooking spray. Sprinkle sea salt on top to taste (I used about a teaspoon) and toss.

Bake kale for 10-15 minutes, tossing at least once, until crispy. Do not let them get too brown or else they will be bitter.

The only sad thing about making kale chips is that they shrink so much so you only end up with a baggie-ful when you started off with a whole bunch. And they're pretty addictive, so they only last a half inning or so. Unless it's the inning where Papi hits his third homerun of the year and the Red Sox went on to score two more runs. Because that was a pretty long inning. Just sayin'.

I think I'll make some wok-fried edamame with garlic to bring to tonight and tomorrow's game. They'll be like the healthier, Asian version of peanuts at a ballgame since I can just toss the shells onto the ground! =)

Black Sesame Ice Cream

2009-06-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

And here is the promised recipe for black sesame ice cream. I basically used the same recipe I created for the red bean black and sesame ice cream but left out the sweetened red beans. At Annie's party I started talking to jglee about making ice creams, and she mentioned that she also makes this, but from real black sesame seeds and with a frozen custard base. I realized I have found myself moving away from the frozen custard recipes, maybe in part because it requires a lot more effort and also because it means a lot of left over egg whites. But I did just bookmark this recipe for "self-frosting angel cake" that uses egg whites (and as a bonus it bakes in a pan instead of a bundt pan, which I don't own) so maybe I'll try another frozen custard recipe in the near future.

Black Sesame Ice Cream
makes about 1 quart

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
3 1/2 cups half and half
2 pouches (about 1/2 cup) black sesame instant powder mix

Whisk all the ingredients together and let chill completely in the refrigerator.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and let harden in freezer overnight.

Wasn't that easy? Three ingredients and three sentences! =) Which reminds me, I should get around to making my coconut lime sorbet soon. That recipe only has two ingredients, and I bet I can get the directions down to two sentences.....

This is my entry to the Homemade #5 Challenge - Ice Cream.

Boston Organics, Week 14

2009-06-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

With the last delivery I made kalbi with the pear, apple, and kiwi; granola with the banana; fresh orange sorbet with the oranges and lemon; sliced up the tomato for hamburgers; and threw the rest of the vegetables into fried rice.

This week I received 2 Anjou Pears, 2 Braeburn Apples, 2 Fair Trade Bananas, 2 Kiwis, 2 Valencia Oranges, 1 lb. Asparagus, 1 lb. Baby Carrots, 3 Tomatoes on the Vine, 1 Zucchini, and 1 bunch Kale. I think I'll make David Lebovitz's pear-caramel ice cream, curried carrot soup, browned butter and basalmic vinegar roasted asparagus, and kale chips.

The rest of the fruit will probably be consumed this weekend between heats at the Boston Dragon Boat Festival. Please come and cheer for The Boat for Kids Who Don't Paddle Good! We'll be the really, really, ridiculously good-looking team. ;)

Butter Mochi Cupcakes

2009-06-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

For Annie's birthday party this past Sunday, I wanted to make ice cream and cupcakes and decided on black sesame ice cream and butter mochi cupcakes after she said she liked the Asian flavor ice creams and requested a non-citrusy cupcake. I've made mochi cake before, but when I looked up recipes for the cupcakes on-line, I noticed that there was a lot less milk used in the recipe I found than in the recipe I usually used. I also came across recipes for butter mochi, which used coconut milk in addition to or instead of milk. So I decided to combine the two to make butter mochi cupcakes!

Butter Mochi Cupcakes with Sweetened Red Beans
makes about 26 cupcakes

1 stick unsalted butter, melted (and cooled to room temperature)
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can coconut milk
1 pound (16 ounces) glutinous rice flour (the green bag with the 3 elephants on it)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (18.75 oz.) can sweetened red beans (or red bean paste)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners and spray the inside of the liners with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and coconut milk. Stir in the rice flour and baking powder and mix well.

Fill the cupcake liners about halfway with the batter. Place about a teaspoon of the sweetened red beans on top of the batter. Divide the remaining batter evenly among the liners. The liners should be 80-90% full.

Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden brown.

Since I wasn't going to frost these, I experimented with a couple of ways to decorate them. For the cupcake in the very first picture picture, I just left it as is with the red bean sandwiched between two layers of batter. I also tried using a toothpick to swirl the red bean layer around with the batter and putting some whole red beans on top in a flower pattern. I ended up liking the first kind the most because they were the only ones that got nice and golden brown on top. The swirls that I tried were really too thin and faint, and the whole red beans ended up migrating during the baking process so you couldn't even tell it used to be a flower.

In the end, I thought the cupcakes were just okay. They tasted fine, but they didn't develop the nice crust that I get when I make my normal recipe for mochi cake. Whether that's because of the tweaked recipe with less liquid or because there was no contact with a metal surface or a combination of the two, I'm not sure. I also didn't think the texture of the cupcake was conducive to cupcake form. It was soft and sticky (as it should be) which meant that it stuck to the cupcake liner (even though I sprayed it with cooking spray) and lost its shape as it was eaten. In my opinion, you should be able to easily peel the liner away from a cupcake, and it shouldn't turn into a blob when you try to eat it. So I think I will stick to making mochi cake in sheet cake form with my original recipe, although I may try it with coconut milk instead of regular milk next time.

Stay tuned for the black sesame ice cream recipe which turned out much better. =)

Homemade Banana-Sweetened Granola

2009-06-02T11:53:00.001-07:00

I'm lucky enough to work at a place that supplies free milk (skim, 2%, and whole!) so my breakfast each weekday morning is usually some type of cereal and milk. I never considered making my own granola before, though, because I remember all the hype when I was younger about how much sugar and fat is in granola. Then I came across this recipe for banana-sweetened granola that seemed too good to be true. Not only did the recipe not contain any sugar (using a banana and some maple syrup-or in my case, honey, because I didn't have any maple syrup-as sweeteners) but it also didn't list oil as an ingredient (although the almonds, flax seeds, and shredded coconut that I added contain natural fats). I don't know how this compares to homemade granola that uses sugar and oil, but I do know that this was good enough to eat as breakfast for a whole week!

Homemade Banana-Sweetened Granola (based on this recipe at Delicious By Nature)

makes about 6 servings

1 ripe or frozen banana
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
1 cup shredded coconut
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Using a blender, blend together banana, water, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, and sea salt until very smooth.

Toss banana puree together with rolled oats and nuts. Lay everything out in a single layer on a tinfoil lined baking pan (it may stick a little). Bake for 40 minutes until oats are starting to brown. Stir 4 times throughout, breaking up any clumps that are forming.

Add shredded coconut when there are 12 minutes left of baking time to lightly toast.

Remove from oven and add the flax seeds and raisins. Serve with milk or yogurt or as a snack on its own.

Feel free to substitute different nuts, seeds, and dried fruits if you like. I just added the shredded coconut because I still had some leftover from making the Samoa cupcakes and the raisins from making the carrot cake ice cream.

Fresh Orange Sorbet

2009-05-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

I had 4 oranges (2 from a previous delivery) and 1 lemon from Boston Organics that I wanted to use up, so I googled "orange lemon sorbet" and found this recipe for fresh orange sorbet from Cooking Light. The recipe said that I'd need about 10 medium-size oranges and 2 medium-size lemons, but I found that the 4 oranges made enough juice for half the recipe. I also added a splash of citrus vodka to the mixture right before adding it to the ice cream maker to keep it from being too icy.

Fresh Orange Sorbet (from Cooking Light)
makes about 6 cups

2 1/2 cups water
1 cup sugar
Orange rind strips from 2 oranges
2 2/3 cups fresh orange juice
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Splash of citrus vodka (optional)

Combine water and sugar in a small saucepan, and bring mixture to a boil. Add orange rind strips; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove and discard orange rind strips. Remove liquid from heat, and let cool to room temperature. Stir in orange juice and lemon juice. Chill in refrigerator until completely cool.

Right before churning, add the splash of citrus vodka. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Serve immediately.

When I was churning the sorbet, I noticed these icy globules forming which made me concerned that there might be globs of ice in the sorbet surrounded by sticky orange syrup (similar to what happens when you freeze orange juice), but the texture of the sorbet ended up being pretty uniform.

I did neglect to read the instructions to the end and ended up freezing the sorbet overnight instead of serving it immediately. Despite the addition of the alcohol to lower the freezing temperature, the sorbet did get quite hard and icy so that the texture was more like a granita. It was still quite refreshing, however, and I found the combination of the flavor and texture strangely addictive. I love how it tastes like fresh-squeezed orange juice even days after it was made. And the fact that it was ice cold made it all the more perfect as a summer dessert or palate cleanser.

Kalbi (Korean Barbecue Short Ribs)

2009-05-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

Still Life of Marinade Ingredients

My friend Vince* is known for his kalbi recipe, so when I asked him for it, this is what he gave me:

-1 cup ajimirin sauce
-1/2 can of 7-Up
-1 kiwi
-1 yellow onion
-1 red apple
-1 pear...preferably Asian pear
-1/2 cup garlic

-Blend all these ingredients together and take 3 cups of the blend and mix it with the 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of soy sauce.

I laughed when I first read this because of the lack of instructions on how to prepare the fruits. Was I supposed to peel and core the apple and pear? I wasn't supposed to throw the whole kiwi into the blender, right? When I asked him for clarification, he said that what he sent me was what he got verbatim from his Korean friend. There was also something in the recipe about "tenderizing" the short ribs, but there were no details as to how to do that. Seeing as how kalbi meat is so tender already, I figured I could just skip that part.

Perhaps the hardest part about making kalbi is finding the right cut of meat. You want to get beef short ribs that are cut across the bones, not with, which is how they're usually sold in American grocery stores. I just found out via the recent post on thekitchn.com that this is called a "flanken" count (not the same as flank steak). The only place I've found this cut is at a local Korean grocery store. Sara Kate, who wrote the post, suggests "slicing the traditional three-rib short ribs down to the bones length-wise and splaying them on the grill" if you can't find the flanken cut.

Kalbi (Korean Barbecue Short Ribs)
serves 8-12 people

6 lbs. flanken cut beef short ribs
1 kiwi
1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 red apple, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 pear (preferably Asian pear, but I had a Bosc so I used that), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1/2 cup peeled garlic gloves
1 cup ajimirin sauce (I didn't have any so I substituted rice wine)
1/2 can of 7-Up
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sugar

Cut the kiwi in half and remove the meat using a spoon. Add the kiwi meat to a blender along with the onion, apple, pear, garlic, mirin (or rice wine) and 7-Up. Puree using the blender. Measure out 3 cups of this mixture into a medium mixing bowl and add the soy sauce and sugar.

Arrange the ribs in a baking dish (you may have to use two depending on the size of your dish) and pour the marinade over them, making sure that all surfaces are exposed to the marinade. Alternatively, you can use two gallon-sized freezer bags.

Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours, turning the ribs around a few times so they marinate evenly.

Grill the ribs over high heat. I do about 3 minutes on each side because my ribs are cut pretty thin, but you may have to grill yours longer if yours are thicker. If you don't have a grill, you can also pan-fry or use the broiler to cook the ribs. I used my electric grill and cooked it outside because the smell is heavenly, but not something you want to stick around for days.

Serve with washed Romaine lettuce leaves, cooked rice, and ssamjang (Korean spicy bean paste). Each person should remove the meat from the bones and wrap the meat in the the lettuce along with the rice and bean paste. Don't forget to gnaw on the meat in between the bones; it's hard to get to, but oh so worth it!

If you're not planning on cooking the ribs right away, you can freeze them in the freezer bags after adding the marinade. When you're ready to cook them, defrost defrost overnight in the refrigerator.

I <3 Kalbi!

*Breaking news! I just found out that Vince liked the kalbi recipe so much, he ended up dating the girl that gave it to him! Perhaps I should rename this post: A Kalbi Worth Dating For....

Boston Organics, Week 12

2009-05-22T08:41:00.001-07:00

Wow, I can't believe I've been doing this for twelve weeks already! I've definitely enjoyed trying to figure out how to use up all the produce every two weeks and my diet has definitely benefited from being "forced" to eat more fruits and veggies than I would if I didn't have this service.

From the last delivery, I ate most of the fruit as is, made guacamole from the avocado, tomato, and onion; tomato and eggs over rice with the rest of the tomato; caramelized the onions and carrots (basically the only way I will eat carrots); sauteed the yellow squash with garlic; and made coconut curry noodles with the collard greens.

This week I got 1 Bosc Pear, 2 Cameo Apples, 2 Fair Trade Bananas, 1 Kiwi, 1 Lemon, 2 Valencia Oranges, 1 bunch Asparagus, 1 bag Baby Carrots, 1 bunch Chard, 1 Salad Tomato, and 1 Zucchini. I was actually a little confused when I saw the chard (the leafy green vegetable in the picture above) because I'm more familiar with the red stem kind. But after googling for images of "chard" I guess there are non-red steam kinds of chard.

Am thinking about making a kalbi marinade with one of the red apples, the pear, and the kiwi. Since I'll most likely have some leftover marinade, will probably use it to marinate some of the leftover meat I have in the freezer from hot pot and use it for bibimbap along with the chard, carrots, and zucchini. Thinking about roasting the asparagus, and maybe making an orange-lemon sorbet with the citrus. And I'll probably make tomatoes and eggs over rice again just because I like that dish so much. =)

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

2009-05-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to bring some homemade ice cream to Ely's birthday party so I asked him what his favorite ice cream flavor was. "Strawberry and chocolate chip cookie dough," he said. As tempted as I was to add chocolate chip cookie dough to strawberry ice cream, I resisted, and ended up making the best strawberry ice cream I've ever tasted.

I found the recipe on epicurious.com, and it was originally printed in the June 2001 issue of Gourmet magazine with the tagline, "Don't let the unexciting name of the recipe fool you—this ice cream is unusually good." I wondered what they meant by "unusually good", and I think they were referring to how the addition of a little citrus totally brings out the freshness of the strawberries, kind of like how cilantro brings out the freshness of savory dishes.

Compared to other frozen custard recipes I've made in the past, this one had a lot more cream (no milk at all) and used the whole egg instead of just the yolks. I was afraid with that much cream it would leave a greasy coating on the tongue, but that didn't happen at all. I did substitute lime zest and lime juice for the lemon since I had a lime but no lemon. And instead of pureeing the strawberries in a blender, I used an immersion blender to mash the strawberries so as to leave chunks of fruit in the final product. Since I wanted the chunks, I wasn't able to strain the strawberry mixture to remove the seeds, but I don't think it really mattered at the end.

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream (based on the recipe from Gourmet June 2001)
makes about 1 quart

1 3/4 cups heavy cream
3 (3- by 1-inch) strips fresh lime zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 lb strawberries (3 cups), trimmed and quartered
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Combine cream, zest, and salt in a heavy saucepan and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and discard zest.

Whisk eggs with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl, then add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking. Pour back into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170°F (do not let boil).

Immediately pour custard through a fine sieve into a metal bowl, then cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Chill, covered, at least until cold, about 2 hours, and up to 1 day.

While custard is chilling, mash strawberries with remaining 1/4 cup sugar and lime juice using an immersion. Stir strawberry mixture into custard.

Freeze in ice-cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Sage and Apricot Shortbread Cookies

2009-05-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

After making the Zuni ricotta gnocchi with browned butter and sage, I had a bunch of leftover fresh sage. I could've made another savory dish, but then I spotted Tartelette's post for rosemary and apricot shortbread cookies, which in turn, were based on Better Homes and Garden's apricot-sage cookies. This was quite serendipitous because I was actually looking for a way to use up this most wonderful apricot & almond butter I had bought from the Ferry Building Farmer's Market when I had visited SF a couple of weeks ago. This stuff is out of this world. As in when I had my first taste, my eyes lit up just like Jonathan's did when he tasted the honey in 1 Samuel 14. That's right, it's Bible-quoting good.

I'd been hogging it all to myself, just smearing some on whole wheat toast and eating that for breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, etc. But I realized it deserved to be showcased and shared. And sage shortbread cookies sounded like a pretty good way to do that.

Sage and Apricot Shortbread Cookies (based on the recipe from BHG.com)
makes 20 sandwich cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup butter
2 Tbsp. snipped fresh sage
3 Tbsp. milk
Apricot spreadable fruit (I used June Taylor's apricot & almond butter)

Preheat oven to 375 °F. In a bowl stir together flour, sugar, and cornmeal. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs (I used a fork for this). Stir in sage. Add milk. Stir with fork to combine; form into ball. Knead until smooth; divide in half.

On lightly floured surface, roll half the dough at a time to 1/4-inch thickness. Using 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out dough.

Place cutouts 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 10 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are very lightly browned. Transfer cookies to wire rack. Cool.

Spread bottoms of half the cookies with spreadable fruit. Top with remaining cookies.

To store: Place in layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store at room temperature up to 3 days. Or freeze unfilled cookies up to 3 months. Thaw cookies; fill with spreadable fruit.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the apricot & almond butter wasn't really viscous enough to be used in a sandwich cookie; it kept smooshing out the sides when you bit into the cookie. And interestingly enough, I could barely taste the sage, although almost all my friends who tried it immediately commented on the savoriness of the cookies. Personally, I probably would've added some salt to the cookie mix or sprinkled some sea salt on top of the cookies right before baking them.

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi with Browned Butter and Sage

2009-05-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

When I checked to see what the inaugural challenge for the Daring Cooks was, I just happened to be in San Francisco, the same city where the Zuni Cafe resides. Having never had ricotta gnocchi, I figured I better stop by the restaurant and taste the real thing before I went about trying to make it. I'm really glad I did because I probably would've have been tempted to douse my gnocchi with some type of heavy tomato-based sauce, but what this ultra-light pasta needs is something much more simple. Something like browned butter and sage.

Now I won't lie and say this recipe was simple, because it's not. (And I've tried to simplify the recipe as much as possible here.) You need to drain the ricotta the day before, and then there's this really delicate handling of the gnocchi while forming it that definitely needs a lot of careful attention. But if you do everything correctly, what you'll end up with is so light and fluffy in texture, yet so rich and decadent in taste that you'll be thinking about these long after you've finished your meal. I know I was.

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi with Browned Butter and Sage (gnocchi recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook)
serves 4 to 6

For the gnocchi:
16 oz. fresh ricotta
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 fresh sage leaves, minced
1/2 oz. Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about 1/4 teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the sauce:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 dashes ground nutmeg

The day before you want to make the gnocchi, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain with a bowl underneath for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula. Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta and stir to combine.

Melt the tablespoon of butter with the chopped sage. Add a little at a time to the ricotta and egg mixture while stirring so that the eggs don't cook. Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.

Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy batter with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.

In a large, shallow bowl, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s 1/2" deep.

Using a tablespoon, scoop up about a tablespoon of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.

Use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can; at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.

Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm, about 3 to 5 minutes.

If your gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If your gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.

Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour. Form the rest of your gnocchi and place on the sheet pan. Store the formed gnocchi in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

While the gnocchi are in the refrigerator, make the sauce by melting the 1/4 cup of butter in a small saucepan. Continue to cook and stir until it turns a golden brown (if it gets too dark it will become bitter). Remove from heat and add the sage, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s wide), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.

Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray. Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

I have to say, if it hadn't been for this Daring Cooks first challenge, I doubt I would've ever ordered the ricotta gnocchi at Zuni Cafe, much less try to make it. (I probably would've gotten the roast chicken with warm bread salad because I've been dying to make it ever since I heard about it.) I'm glad I did, though, if only to broaden my foodie and cooking experiences, and I can't wait to find out what the next month's challenge is.

Red Bean and Black Sesame Ice Cream

2009-05-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

After the moffle party a couple of weeks ago, I had a lot of leftover sweetened red beans and sweetened condensed milk left over so I decided to make some red bean ice cream like last time. Except I didn't have enough sweetened condensed milk so when I taste tested the mixture before churning it, it didn't seem quite sweet enough. I also happened to have some leftover instant black sesame powder, so I decided to add that to the mix, and voila! Red bean and and black sesame ice cream!

Red Bean and Black Sesame Ice Cream
makes about 1 quart

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sweetened red beans
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup instant sesame powder

Mix all the ingredients and freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Harden overnight in the freezer.

It was so simple to make and not surprisingly, perfect on moffles! I think next time I may try to make a black sesame ice cream. And I still dream about making a pure white almond ice cream....

Boston Organics, Week 10

2009-05-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

I opted out of the previous delivery because I knew I was going to be out of town, but here's how I used the last delivery: I made a fruit salad out of the apples, pears, oranges, kiwis, and bananas; ate the grapefruit and tangelos; made David Lebovitz's carrot cake ice cream with the carrots; put the scallions in water and used some for making tofu with spicy garlic sauce and the bacon and egg bunny buns; made coconut curry noodles with the collar greens and green pepper; made Korean-style soy sauce potatoes with the potatoes; and used the yellow squash in hot pot.

This week I got 1 Bosc Pear, 3 Fair Trade Bananas, 2 Fuji Apples, 2 Kiwis, 1 Red Grapefruit, 2 Valencia Oranges, 1 bag of Baby Carrots, 1 Cubanelle Pepper, 1 Fair Trade Avocado, 1 Salad Tomato, 1 Yellow Squash, and 1 bunch Collard Greens. I think you already know what I'm going to make with the collard green, and I'll probably throw in the pepper and maybe the squash. I still have some limes from making the mango lime sorbet, so I'll probably make guacamole with the avocado, onions, and tomato. Any suggestions for what to do with the carrots if I don't want to taste them (other than carrot cake and carrot cake ice cream)?

Coconut Curry Noodles with Collard Greens and Broccoli

2009-05-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I got two Boston Organics deliveries in a row with collard greens and broccoli. I was fine with the broccoli, other than possibly getting bored with it, but I didn't really want to make braised collard greens with bacon again. So when I saw this recipe for creamy coconut collards, I was pretty intrigued. I would never have thought that collard greens, a staple in Southern soul food, could be used in an Asian-inspired dish. But it's a brilliant combination; the slightly sweet creaminess of the coconut milk tempers whatever bitterness the collard greens may have left after braising, and the curry gives it just enough kick to cut through the cream.

The only thing was, served over rice, the texture was just too blah. So I tried it over chow mein noodles (not the crispy La Choy kind; the kind that you boil), added some stir-fried broccoli, and the dish turned into something sublime and much, much greater than just the sum of its parts. I've already made this twice and will most likely make the next time I get collard greens; it's really that good.

Unfortunately, I didn't really take note of how much of what I used and basically "cooked by feel". But this dish is too good not to share, so here's what I did:

Coconut Curry Noodles with Collard Greens and Broccoli
serves 3-4

Cut off the florets from 3 stalks of broccoli to end up with about 2 cups of florets. Mince a clove or two of garlic. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok and add the garlic and salt. Toss in the broccoli and stir fry until bright green, about 2-3 minutes. Add about 1/2 cup of water and cover to finish cooking by steaming about another 5 minutes. Once it is done, remove the broccoli from the wok and set aside.

Wash the collard greens, remove the stems, and cut the leaves into ribbons. Mince another clove or two of garlic. Heat up some oil in the cleaned wok and add the garlic and collard greens. Stir fry for a couple of minutes and then add a can of coconut milk and curry powder to taste (start with 2 teaspoons). Cook over medium-high heat for 8-10 minutes until the collard greens are done and the sauce is slightly thickened. Add the broccoli and toss. Remove from heat.

In large pot, boil salted water. Add the steamed chow mein to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and add to the curried coconut collards. Toss to mix and salt to taste. Serve hot.

You can add chicken or pork to the dish by cutting it into bite-sized pieces and browning it in the hot oil before adding the garlic and collard greens. If you can't find steamed chow mein, you could probably substitute Hong Kong style egg noodles (like the kind I used for the pan-fried noodles), ramen, or possibly even angel hair cooked al dente. I probably wouldn't use anything too thick or chewy; the reason why the noodles worked while the rice didn't is because you want some bite in the texture. I made this with regular coconut milk, but next time I will try it with reduced fat coconut milk.

If you try making this, please let me know what you think!

Carrot Cake Ice Cream

2009-05-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

I did say that the next time I got carrots in my Boston Organics delivery I would make carrot cake ice cream, and I am a woman of my word. I basically followed David Lebovitz's recipe from the L.A. Times except I substituted raisins and rum for the currants and whiskey for the simple reason that I didn't have the latter two.

Carrot Cake Ice Cream (based on David Lebovitz's recipe here)
makes about 1 quart

For the rum-soaked raisins:

1/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons rum

Combine the raisins and rum in a small bowl. Cover and let sit overnight in the refrigerator.

For the spiced pecans:

1 cup pecan halves
1 tablespoon butter, melted

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Pre-heat the oven to 350 °F. Toss the pecans with the butter.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar and salt. Pour the mixture over the pecans and toss to coat completely.

Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and cook for 12 minutes, gently stirring halfway during baking to candy the nuts. Remove the tray to a rack and cool the nuts completely. Once cool, coarsely chop the pecans. Set aside.

For the candied carrots:

2 cups finely diced carrots
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 cups water

In a medium saucepan, combine the carrots, sugar, corn syrup and water. Bring to a low boil and cook until the syrup is reduced to about 2 tablespoons and the carrots are translucent and candied, 20 to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the carrots during the last few minutes so they do not burn. Drain the carrots and set aside to cool.

For the ice cream base and assembly:

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1 1/2 cups sour cream (regular or low-fat)

2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon chopped lemon zest
Spiced pecans
Rum-soaked raisins
Candied carrots

In a large bowl using a hand mixer, blend together the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and lemon zest until smooth. Chill thoroughly.

Freeze the base in an ice cream maker. After churning, gently fold in the spiced pecans, soaked raisins, and candied carrot cubes. Freeze until firm.

This was definitely one of the prettiest ice creams I've ever made. The candied carrots almost glowed like semi-precious gems studding the white canvas of the ice cream, and the matte brown of the spice pecans added a nice change up of texture. As for the taste, while it didn't taste exactly like a carrot cake, I did like how you couldn't taste the carrots. My favorite part was the spiced pecans, probably because of the butter and spices. If I made this again, I'd probably add some more of the spices to the ice cream base itself to make it more reminiscent of a carrot cake.

Stuffed Artichokes

2009-04-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling all week so here's a recipe I made a while back and haven't posted yet. I remember my first year after moving to Boston, one of my friends, May-Lynn and I decided to explore the North End, Boston's version of Little Italy. I can't remember the name of the restaurant we decided to eat dinner at, but I do remember ordering stuffed artichokes but not knowing how to eat it once it came to our table. My only previous experience with artichokes had been with either artichoke hearts or artichoke dip. No help here. Finally we asked the waiter, and he directed us to pluck off the leaves and put the wide ends in out mouth and scrape off the meat with our upper teeth. We proceeded to do as such, but he forgot to mention that we should stop once we got to the choke (the prickly part in the center), and I just remember not really enjoying the experience.

When I received two artichokes in my Boston Organics delivery a couple of weeks ago, the only thing I could think of to make was stuffed artichokes, so I looked up a good recipe from allrecipes.com and found this one. I also looked up how to eat an artichoke, and this time my experience was much more pleasant.

Stuffed Artichokes (based on this recipe from allrecipes.com)
makes 2

2 whole artichokes
1 cup bread crumbs
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon grated Romano cheese
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

Snip the pointed tips of artichoke leaves, and cut off the stems. Wash and drain. Holding artichoke firmly by base, firmly rap the top of it on a hard surface; this will open it so it can be stuffed.

In a medium bowl combine bread crumbs, garlic, Romano cheese, oregano, 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, and pepper; mix well.

Press about 1/2 cup of stuffing into each artichoke. Tightly pack stuffed artichokes together in a large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven. Add enough water to reach half way up artichokes and add 2 teaspoons oil.

Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, or until leaves pull out easily.

Unfortunately, a cooked stuffed artichoke is not that pretty to look at, so no picture of that, but in the tradition of Orangette, here's a picture of what it looked like when I was done eating it.

And boy did I enjoy eating it. I think knowing how to eat a stuffed artichoke really helped; I ended up eating both for dinner the night I made it, and I can't wait for the next time I get some artichokes from Boston Organics.

Mango Lime Sorbet

2009-04-28T10:52:00.001-07:00

When I got back from SF, I found a package in my room and couldn't remember what I had ordered. Then I realized it was the box of mangoes I won from Our Best Bites. I had no idea how long they'd been sitting in my warm, stuffy room, but so unfortunately a couple of them were in the mushy stage by the time I opened up the box. But the rest were perfectly soft-ripe. Since I was leaving on another weekly long trip, I decided I better try to use most of them up and looked on-line for a recipe for mango sorbet. I came across Elise's recipe for lime mango sorbet and decided to try that, only I used coconut rum instead of tequila, and I prefer to call it mango lime sorbet because it rolls off the tongue easier.

Mango Lime Sorbet (based on Elise's recipe here)
makes almost 1 quart

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Zest from one lime
3 ripe mangos (about 2 1/2 pounds)
1/2 cup lime juice
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons coconut rum

Heat the sugar, water, and lime zest in a medium saucepan until the sugar has completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Cut the flesh from the mangoes.

Put the mango pieces, sugar water, lime juice, and salt into a blender. Blend until completely smooth. Pour into a medium bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until completely chilled.

When ready to put the chilled lime mango purée into your ice cream maker, mix in the rum. Process the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the ice cream maker directions. Transfer mixture to a plastic storage container and freeze in your freezer until firm, at least 6 hours.

The rum is added to keep the sorbet from getting too icy, but I think it may have done it's job a little too well because even after freezing overnight, the sorbet was a little too soft for my preference. Next time I'll probably reduce the amount of rum to 2 tablespoons. Next time, I'd probably also strain the lime zest out of the simple syrup before blending with the mango flesh. I didn't like how some of the zest accumulated one the ice cream maker blades, ending up with a bolus of lime zest which was rather bitter to the taste. Otherwise, I really liked how this sorbet wasn't too sweet and was just perfect for a really hot day, like I hear Boston is today.

Apple Pie Apple

2009-04-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while; the main reason is that I've been traveling, namely to San Francisco, the land of the Ferry Building Farmers Market, Zuni Cafe, and garlic fries at AT&T Park. Got a lot of inspiration from the trip, and I'm sure I'll be posting about that in the near future, but right now I want to talk about the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's apple pie apple.

First of all, yes, it is one of those strange foods that have the name repeated in the modifier, e.g. chicken fried chicken. It's just one of the many awesome things attributed to this confectionary delight. Take an apple, dip it in caramel, then white chocolate, and then roll it in a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon and voila! An apple pie apple. I used to grab one of these every time I had to travel through the Charlotte airport and was a bit sad when I stopped going down that way, but then I found out that they opened a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in O'Hare airport, which I travel through a lot more!

Forces aligned once more as I realized I happened to have all the ingredients to make one myself. I had one beautiful Braeburn apple left from my Boston Organics delivery, caramels leftover from making the Samoa cupcakes, and white candy melts leftover from making the cupcake bites. The results were identical to the real thing in taste, although not quite as pretty to look at.

Apple Pie Apple
makes 1

1 Braeburn apple, washed and dried (can also use Fuji, Golden Delicious, McIntosh, or Granny Smiths)
10 pieces of caramel
2 oz. white candy melts
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 dashes cinnamon

Remove the apple stem if necessary and insert a popsicle stick down the core. Put in the apple in the freezer for at least 5 minutes but no more than 15 minutes to chill.

Unwrap the caramels and put them in a small microwave-safe bowl along with 1 teaspoon of water. Melt the caramel in the microwave at 50% power for one minute. Remove from microwave and stir. If the caramel is not completely melted, microwave again at 50% power for another 20 seconds.

Dip the apple into the melted caramel, using a spoon if necessary to get the caramel up the sides. Once the apple is covered, place on a greased plate and return to the freezer to chill.

In another small microwave-safe bowl, melt the white candy melts in the microwave using the defrost option. Remove from microwave and stir. If not completely melted, return to microwave and defrost for another 30 seconds.

On a small plate, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon, making sure to crumble any lumps.

Once the caramel on the apple is not sticky anymore (but before it is frozen!), remove from the freezer. If necessary, try to push any caramel that has pooled to the bottom back onto the apple. Dip in the white candy melts, using a spoon if necessary to get the candy up the sides.

Before the white candy sets, roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place the apple in the refrigerator for a few minutes to allow the white candy to harden.

To serve, make 2 parallel slices almost all the way down both sides of the core, leaving the bottom 1/4" intact. Rotate 90 degrees and make 2 more similar parallel slices to give you 8 slices you can break off and the core in the middle.

If you don't have a popsicle stick, you can probably get away without using one, but it's a lot easier to manipulate the apple in the caramel, melted white candy, and cinnamon sugar mixture if you have one.

Moffles!

2009-04-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

I first heard about moffles through The Kitchn (btw, in case you haven't seen, my bunny buns were featured as a Delicious Link on The Kitchn a few days back!) and decided if there was any way I could get my hands on a waffle iron and mochi blocks, I would definitely try it out. Well, luckily, my friends Jen and Tammy had a waffle iron and mochi blocks, which Tammy got from a Korean grocery store. I invited them over with their respective supplies and said I'd provide the toppings.

At first I was thinking more traditional waffle toppings like maple syrup, whipped cream, bananas, Nutella, etc., but then Jen suggested we stick to more traditional mochi accompaniments, such as sweetened red beans, peanuts ground with sugar, and black sesame powder, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Even better, when I was at Super 88 looking for black sesame seeds, I found instant sesame powder mix, which according to the ingredients, already had sugar in it. As for the peanut powder, I just used a food processor to grind a half cup of raw peanuts with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar. Just make sure you don't grind too long or else you'll end up with peanut butter. You basically want it to look like this:

I added sweetened condensed milk to the toppings because I like how it goes with sweetened red beans, and I thought the powders might need something kind of wet and sticky to bind to. Finally, I made some frozen yogurt on the spot using a cup of vanilla yogurt, 1/3 cup of sour cream, and 1 bottle of Chinese yogurt drink. I was aiming for something like Pinkberry frozen yogurt, but I failed to add sugar, and the texture wasn't quite there. Still edible, though. =)

So according to the article, you just throw some mochi blocks on to the waffle iron and let it do its thing. I set the waffle iron on high, sprayed it with some cooking oil, put two blocks in the center, and closed the top. The blocks start off dry and dense; basically nothing you'd ever try to eat as is. But as the heat started cooking the mochi, the blocks began to expand and fill out the entire waffle iron. After a couple minutes, we were able to press down on the iron to close it, and we took the moffles off the iron once they were coming out the sides.

Then we cut each moffle into quarters and started experimenting with the toppings. I found that the moffle itself didn't have too much flavor, which is not a bad thing as it was really the texture that stands out. The outside is crispy, almost crackly, while the inside is soft and almost gooey. In a word, awesome.

I really, really liked the sesame powder topping as it reminded me of the sesame filled tang yuan, and the red bean and sweetened condensed milk topped moffles were pretty good too. I wasn't as big of a fan of the peanut powder, but then, I'm not a big fan of peanuts in general.

I would totally make moffles again, if ever such a confluence of a waffle maker and mochi blocks being in my kitchen happened again. And if you have a waffle maker, I can totally find some mochi blocks to bring by. ;)

Bacon and Egg Bunny Buns

2009-04-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

When I first saw these on Tastespotting, I just knew I had to make them, and what better venue for some bunny buns than an Easter brunch? The recipe seemed a little different from the one I use for hua juan, but I decided to follow it exactly. The only change I made was that I used scallions instead of chives in the bacon egg mixture and used ice cream sprinkles instead of eyes for the chives.

Bacon and Egg Bunny Buns (based on this recipe from justhungry.com)
makes 12 buns

For the dough:

400 g all-purpose white flour
1 packet (7g) instant dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
220 ml warm water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
extra flour for rolling out

For the filling:

2 slices bacon
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoo sugar
1 teaspoon rice wine
1 tablespoons scallions, finely chopped

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients for the dough together. Add the warm water a little at a time, mixing all the time, until it forms a shaggy ball. Add the oil and knead in the bowl until the dough cleans the sides. Place on a board (lightly floured if necessary) and knead until smooth. Form into a ball, place back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave until risen to about 2 1/2 times its original size, about 1 hour.

In the meantime, make the filling. In a dry non-stick frying pan, fry the the bacon bits until crispy but not too black. Drain well on a paper towel and crumble once cooled.

Mix together the egg, soy sauce, sugar and rice wine. In the same non-stick frying pan (i.e. in the bacon grease), mix the egg around to make scrambled eggs that are firm but not hard (take off the heat while still soft and they’ll continue to cook to the ideal firmness). Add the scallions and bacon at the end and mix well. Let cool to room temperature.

Punch down the risen dough, roll into a snake and cut into 12 equal pieces. Make each piece into a small, smooth ball. Cover with a dampened kitchen towel and let rest for about 15 minutes.

Cut parchment paper into twelve 4" or so sized squares.

Make ready the steaming equipment.

Flatten a dough ball to about 5" in diameter, making the edges thinner than the middle part.

Place about 1 teaspoon of the filling in the middle of the dough circle. Don’t try to overfill or you will have trouble closing up the dough.

Gather up the dough around the filling, pinching to seal well. The dough should be moist enough to form a good seal, but if not brush the edges with the tiny bit of water and pinch closed again.

Flip the bun over, and form into a longish oval shape, rounding out any bumps if needed. Look at the bun and decide which end looks best as the ‘face’ of the bunny.

Lay a pair of clean, sharp scissors almost flat against the top of the bun lenghwise. The points should aim for about 1/3 from the ‘face’ end of the bun. Snip two ‘ears’, taking care not to cut through the dough so the filling is exposed.

To make the eyes, poke small holes with a chopstick end and poke in an ice cream sprinkle in each hole. Don’t go too deep! (If you are in a hurry, just poke the holes and skip the chives.)

Place each bun on a piece of parchment paper, and place in a steamer well apart (they will puff up to about twice the size, and any touching parts will not be smooth). Steam for about 20 minutes. Eat while piping hot.

I found that the dough came out a bit more dry than what I am used to, and as Annie put it, "there is a flavor to the dough". I agreed and thought it tasted like sandwich bread. This isn't exactly a bad thing, it's just not what is expected from a steamed bun. If I were to make these again, I'd definitely try it with the dough I use for hua juan. Also, I'm not so sure I like the soy sauce added to the scrambled eggs; I think the bacon makes it salty enough, and I'd prefer the color of normal scrambled eggs rather than kind of brownish eggs that were in these. Lastly, I'd definitely not use the ice cream sprinkles for the eys next time. As you can see, the color started running when they were steamed, and they kind of look like goth bunnies or Bunnicula.

Matzo Crack

2009-04-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

I've been saving this post for a while now, but since it's Passover and matzo is everywhere now, I figured it was time. The reason it's called matzo crack may be because you have to crack it into pieces at the end, but I think it's really because it's so utterly addictive that crack is the only word worthy of such a treat. You can make something similar with Saltines instead of matzo, but there's something about the texture of matzo that goes really well with this confection.

Matzo Crack (from thekitchn.com)
Makes about 30 pieces

4 to 5 pieces of matzo or enough Saltines to cover the bottom of a baking sheet
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate, or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 °F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and/or parchment paper.

Okay, yes, those are Saltines, not matzo, but I love the orderliness of this picture.

Place the matzo in one layer on the baking sheet, breaking it when necessary to fill the pan completely. Set aside.

Cooking the toffee

In a large sauce pan, melt the butter and brown sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once the mixture reaches a boil, continue to cook for an additional three minutes, still stirring, until thickened and just starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and pour over the matzo, spreading an even layer with a heat-proof spatula.

Toffee on matzo

Put the pan in the oven, then immediately turn the heat down to 350 °F. Bake for 15 minutes, watching to make sure it doesn't burn. If it looks like it is starting to burn, turn heat down to 325 °F.

Melting the chocolate

After 15 minutes, the toffee should have bubbled up and turned a rich golden brown. Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle the chocolate over the pan. Let sit for five minutes, then spread the now-melted chocolate evenly with a spatula.

Let cool completely, then break into smaller pieces and store in an airtight container.

You can also add some toasted, chopped nuts on top (before the chocolate sets), but I think my topping of choice the next time I make this will be some sea salt, a la David Lebovitz's version.

Boston Organics, Week 8

2009-04-09T14:10:00.001-07:00

From my last delivery, I used the avocado and some cherry tomatoes to make guacamole, the green pepper and the rest of the cherry tomatoes in chilaquiles, served the broccoli and celery as crudites, braised the collard greens in coconut milk, and either used the fruit in a fruit salad or ate them as is. Unfortunately, I had to toss the turnips because they were all shrunken by the time I thought to use them.

This week I decided to downgrade to the Small Box (still 1/2 fruit and 1/2 veggies and $5 cheaper) since I would be out of town for a 5 days next two weeks. I ended up getting 2 Empire Apples, 3 Fair-Trade Bananas, 2 Fair-Trade Bartlett Pears, 2 Kiwis, 1 Red Grapefruit, 2 Tangelos, 2 Valencia Oranges, 1 bag of Baby Carrots, 1 Green Bell Pepper, 1 bunch Scallions, 1 lb. Yukon Potatoes, 1 Zucchini/Yellow Squash, and 1 bunch Collard Greens. I plan on making more fruit salad for tonight's Maundy Thursday potluck and maybe trying David Lebovitz's recipe for carrot cake ice cream with the carrots. I've already put the scallions in water and will probably use some to make egg and bacon bunny buns for Easter brunch.

Rainy Day Coconut Lime Cakelets

2009-04-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

So Opening Day today got rained out. =( I had already taken the day off so when I woke up this morning (before I found out about the rainout), I decided to make the key lime coconut cake recipe from Gourmet but in cupcake form. Only I didn't have any key limes, so I just used regular limes. But I accidentally used all 1/4 cup of lime juice in the batter instead of only half the amount. And I didn't have self-rising flour, so I substituted a mixture of all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, only I completely misread the recipe and used 3/4 cups instead of 1 3/4 cups. Um, so what I ended up with wasn't really a cupcake, and for lack of a better term I renamed them cakelets. =)

Coconut Lime Cakelets (adapted from Gourmet)
makes 24 cakelets

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated Key lime zest
2 large eggs
3/4 cups self-rising flour
3/4 cup milk
3/8 cup fresh Key lime juice, divided
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon coconut rum (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Toast coconut in a small baking pan in oven, stirring once or twice, until golden, 8 to 12 minutes. Cool. Leave oven on.

Beat together butter, granulated sugar, and zest with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Stir together flour and 1/2 cup coconut (reserve remainder for topping). Stir together milk and 1/4 cup lime juice. At low speed, mix flour and milk mixtures into egg mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling them a little more than halfway. Bake until golden, 20 to 22 minutes.

Whisk together confectioners sugar, remaining 2 tablespoons lime juice, and rum (if using) and spoon over cakelets. Sprinkle with remaining coconut.

I baked the first batch of cakelets for 20 minutes and noticed that the middle of the cakelets fell in and they were pulling away from the liner as they cooled. Also, they were still quite soft when I removed them from the tin. So I baked the next batch for 22 minutes, and while they came out a little more firm, they were a lot harder to remove from the liners. So I just used a spoon to eat those.

Even though they didn't turn out how I expected them to, much like my plans for today, at least they were still quite yummy (unlike my plans for today). They totally remind me of eating a lemon bar but in cakelet form.

Samoa Cupcakes and the Cupcake Exchange

2009-04-05T04:54:00.000-07:00

After seeing Sena's maple cupcakes at Leslie's going away party but not tasting any, I devised a clever plan to be able to try some of her cupcakes: a cupcake exchange! I sent out an e-mail to several other baker friends, and we ended up with 6 different batches of cupcakes. Good thing I invited some friends to help eat, too, because there's only so many cupcakes a girl can eat, even if they're as delicious as the ones that were brought.

Sena brought a sundae cupcake that was originally going to be Neapolitan with chocolate and strawberry layers, but then her fiancee suggested adding whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top!

Will brought a root beer banana cupcake with strawberry frosting. He substituted root beer for the water, and it came out super light and fluffy.

Judy brought coffee and walnut cupcakes with a brown sugar streusel on top.

Daphne brought lemon curd cupcakes, which she carved out by hand.

Lastly, Ruth brought meyer lemon meringue cupcakes. Look at the awesome piping!

I decided to make Samoa cupcakes, inspired by my favorite Girl Scout cookies. I found this recipe by chockylit, which looks amazing, but I was a little too lazy to make the cupcakes and caramel sauce from scratch so I improvised by using yellow butter cake mix and bought caramels. The original recipe called for cutting into the cupcakes once they were baked and cooled and filling each one with caramel sauce. I thought I'd try something a little different; I filled each cupcake liner a little more than halfway with the batter, and then topped each one with a caramel. My hope was that the batter would rise up around the caramel to enclose it and that the caramel itself was melt a bit in the oven while baking.

Samoa Cupcakes
makes 24 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:
1 box yellow butter cake mix
1 cup water
3 eggs
1/3 cup butter, softened
24 caramels

For the chocolate ganache:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the toasted coconut topping:
4 cups shredded, sweet coconut
2 eggs
10 ounces evaporated milk
11/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Prepare the cupcake batter according to the box mix directions. Fill each cupcake liner a little more than halfway with the batter and top with a caramel. Bake according to the directions on the box. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

To make chocolate ganache, stir cream and chocolate chips on a double boiler (or use a metal bowl on top of a saucepan of boiling water) until melted. Add vanilla and stir to mix. Let cool to room temperature.

To make the toasted coconut topping, start by spreading the coconut onto a sheet pan. Toast in a 350°F oven, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until the coconut is an even brown color, about 10 minutes. Crack the eggs into a small saucepan and beat lightly to break up. Add milk, sugar, and butter. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thick, bubbly, and golden, about 15 minutes. Press mixture through a metal sieve and into a bowl to remove any lumps. Add 3 cups of the coconut, reserving the remainder for assembly, stir to combine. Let the mixture cool.

To assemble, smooth on a light coating of chocolate ganache. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes to harden the ganache.

Once hardened, spoon on the coconut topping and spread evenly. Top with some more plain toasted coconut.

Drizzle the top with lines of ganache. You may have to warm the ganache over a water bath to get it to drizzling consistency.

Unfortunately, the caramel sunk to the bottom of the cupcakes and hardened instead of sitting in the middle and softening. I had to warn everyone to bite carefully into the cupcake, especially if they had any fillings or crowns.

Otherwise, I was pretty satisfied with the way it turned out. One of the guests commented that it smelled just like a Samoa cookie (this was before we started eating), and I thought the coconut topping tasted exactly like the coconut topping on a Samoa. The original recipe was for 12 cupcakes, so I thought I would need to double the recipe for the chocolate ganache and coconut topping, but it turned out making even the single batch for 12 was more than enough for all 24 cupcakes. I'll probably have to make coconut lime cupcakes and Samoa bars soon to use up the leftovers. Good thing Maundy Thursday and Ruth's baby shower are coming up!

Cupcake Bites

2009-04-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

I've been enchanted by the cake pops that Bakerella has been making, especially these Hello Kitty ones, but they just seemed a little too daunting to try so when I saw The Pioneer Woman's post about how Bakerella makes cupcake bites, I knew I didn't have an excuse anymore. Because while they are just as cute, they're also quite simple to make. All you need is cake mix, frosting, some sprinkles, a peanut butter candy mold, and melting chocolate in different colors (I got the latter two at Michaels). I opted to pick up a squeeze bottle as well, but you could just as easily do without.

So here's how you go about making them. First bake a cake. I chose to use a Devil's Food cake mix, but just about anything will work. Once it's done, cool it completely and then use your hands to rip it all into crumbs.

Add frosting to the crumbs. Bakerella uses a whole tub, but I don't like mine as sweet so I added about 4/5. Next time I think I can get away with adding even less. Basically you just want it to gooey enough that you can roll the cake/frosting mixture into balls without it coming apart.

After you've mixed the cake crumbs and frosting thoroughly, let it sit in the fridge to chill. You can skip this step, but I find that rolling chilled cake crumbs is less messy. You definitely want to chill the balls once they are rolled, though. Make sure that the balls are just a little smaller in diameter than the widest part (the top) of the molds.

While the balls are chilling, you can start melting the chocolate. I followed the instructions on the squeeze bottle and filled the bottle halfway and then putting it into some very hot water to melt the chocolate. If you don't have a squeeze bottle, you can just melt the chocolates according to the directions on the bag in the microwave and use a spoon to dispense it.

Make sure you have your balls ready for the next step because it's a little time sensitive. You want to fill the mold a little less than halfway with chocolate, and while it is still liquid, insert a cake ball and push it down so that the chocolate comes up and fills the rest of the mold. Once you have finished making a tray, pop it into the freezer to chill for a few minutes.

When the chocolate is set, carefully remove them from the tray, and you should have a bunch of unfrosted mini-cupcake looking things. The next step is also time sensitive, so make sure you have everything ready before you proceed.

You'll want to melt some more chocolate (use a different color than what you used for the bottom) in a small bowl. Holding the cupcake bite by the bottom, dip it into the melted chocolate until it almost reaches the top of the hardened chocolate. I give it a good whirl in there to make sure that all the sides are evenly covered. Then place it right-side-up on a plate or tray. While the top chocolate is still liquidy, top it with some sprinkles. I didn't get any good shots of this part because, after all, I only have two hands, but you can take a look at the pictures on The Pioneer Woman's post for a better idea.

If you wait too long, the top chocolate will get too hard and the sprinkles won't stick. This happened with some of my yellow cupcake bites, so I had to re-dip the tops to get the sprinkles to stick. Bakerella uses mini-M&M's for the very top, but since I didn't have any, I used these little red cinnamon candies, which in my opinion, are even cuter because they're smaller.

I made a batch for ArtSpeak at Highrock last week as practice for the batch I'm making for the dessert tasting fundraiser I'm participating in this Saturday. It's called A Little Peace, and it's being held at the Vietnamese American Community Center (42 Charles Street, Dorchester, MA/MBTA Redline @ Fields Corner) from 7 - 10 pm. Tickets are $27 at the door, and you can find out more here. I'm actually participating in the Ocean Spray Bake-Off Challenge, which means I needed to incorporate Craisins into what I made. After thinking about how to do that a bit, I came up with "Rum Craisin Cupcake Bites". Basically the idea is the same as above, but I added some rum to the cake/frosting mixture and rolled each ball around a couple of Craisins before dipping. I believe voting is done by popular vote among the people who attend, so if you're free on Saturday night, please come to the fundraiser!

And if you're free tonight and happen to have an extra $95 lying around, please come to Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, being held at the Hynes Convention Center from 6:30 pm - 9 pm. Basically there will be 74 fine restaurants and 40 wineries from around the area donating their food and drink for an all-you-can-eat-and-drink event plus a live band and silent auction. Because everything is donated and everyone working it is a volunteer, 100% of ticket sales from Taste of the Nation are granted to the most effective anti-hunger organizations working to end childhood hunger in America. If you come before 7:30 pm, James and I will be two of the first people you see because we're the champagne pourers! So even if you don't want to eat some of the best food in Boston and drink to your heart's content, you should come just to see us try to set up a champagne glass pyramid for fun. =)

The Amazing Bibimbap

2009-03-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

One day I was planning on making some fried rice with (even more) leftovers from hot pot when I remember this comic strip that I had see a couple of weeks ago. I had never made bibimbap before, but I ordered it almost every time I went to Super 88, so I figured it was time to try to make some for myself. I really took the words of the comic strip to heart: "...All it was, was nothing. Or rather, the idea of making something out of nothing. As long as it contained rice, that is...(and gochujang)...."

So I started off with some leftover brown rice.

Added some chopped napa cabbage.

Swiss chard.

Julienned carrots.

Imitation crab meat.

Cubed tofu.

Sliced cooked fish balls.

Sliced fried fish cake.

And thinly sliced beef (marinated in soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine)

Topped it with a fried egg.

And some sesame seeds.

And finished it with the spicy bean sauce.

The only thing is, I've always liked my bibimbap in the hot stone bowl, and since I didn't have one, I ended up stir-frying this all up to make fried rice in the end. =P