slow rise… take it easy…
Before Dina, bread was a complete mystery to me, a gem better forged in expensive bread makers (and even then the likelihood of success at home was, in my mind, meager to iffy) or otherwise dropped by storks into supermarkets. I never figured I’d try to make it myself, but then Dina was like “ohhhhh but you SHOULD.” She’s a breadevangelist, which I didn’t know until the subject came up and I found myself well stocked on bread recipes and breadmaking websites.
So, I set off on my bread journey. Sunday’s first attempt produced something that was pretty close to what I expected to get. Which is cool! Yay! Thank you Dina! The recipe was for french bread, but I wanted bowls that I could scoop out and pour soup in, so I formed the amoebic forms you see above and hoped for the best. The end result was hard round boules with impossibly unforgiving crust with a soft nummy middle–much like the type of bread that comes swaddled in cloth napkins before dinner, that people hack and pull at, which is the main thing I associate with french bread, so something must have gone right.
It’s definitely a little yeasty though … I have consulted the master (Dina) and the takeaway points, as well as quick chili pizza, are after the jump.
fruity pancake puffs
strawberry pancake puffs! tart and tasty!
It’s a morning of a day on which you are blissfully free from work. You stretch out in bed, untangle yourself from the embrace of [beautiful person] with whom you collapsed in exhaustion the night before after a night of doing whatever it is people do the night before they don’t have work. (Was it the ultimate Smash Bros. Brawl showdown? Or did you go out and get yourself kicked out of a convenience store again? You don’t even remember, do you). Then it hits you … you’re starving. You crave the tart taste of fruit in combination with something sweet.. crisp yet smooth.. What do you do?!?!
Fruity pancake puffs, that’s what. Born from such a morning as above, after I had just read about aebleskivers (and really freaking wanted some), but had no aebleskiver pan… these pancake puffs are a quick and easy way to sweetly and crispily carry fruits to your mouth in a breakfast-like manner. They have nothing to do with aebleskivers, except that they are why I put pancake batter into a muffin tin. Sometimes you gotta cut corners by .. creating .. corners .. dangit I need an aebleskiver pan.
Anyway the puffs were great. Recipe after the jump..
cooking with grains: millet
millet toasting
Grains can be a fun alternative to cooking with beans while still providing fulfilling nutrients and satisfying meal. There are many popular grain including barely, quinoa, buckwheat, rye and millet. Each grain carries its own taste, texture and stars in its own best meals. Read the rest of this entry »
pressure cooker tea eggs
From the producers who brought you the critically acclaimed egg simmered in soy sauce, comes a riveting companion piece about the marbled cousin of the salty ovoid snack. The version of soy-flavored eggs that I’ve known has always been the tea egg. The eggs are boiled with the shell gently cracked so that soy sauce seeps through the cracks to ink a marble-like spiderweb pattern across the egg white. For my version, I’ve decided to approximate the hours-long simmering that street vendors do by using a pressure cooker.
boiled eggs simmered in soy sauce
Mom makes these whenever she makes beef simmered/braised in soy sauce, and it is SO GOOD. I haven’t the faintest idea what she does with the beef – what parts, how she cuts them, etc… I just know that at the end of the day, there’s definitely eggs in it for me.
Then, when I spent 6 weeks in Beijing, these eggs became both the start and usually the highlight of my days. By the bus stop where I waited to go to work, there would always be a food stand with [a bunch of stuff that I don't remember and] these EGGS. They were “wu mao” per egg (fifty Chinese “cents”) — which makes them about $0.07 apiece.
Eggs and soy sauce are already a magical combination. Hard boiled, fried, whatever – drizzle soy sauce over a cooked egg and you are in bidness. However, simmer a boiled egg in a soy sauce-drenched broth for a few hours ……… that’s where the magic happens.
Anyway, I got mom to squeal her method, so here it is!
the art of flipping an egg
Ever tried to make a fried egg first thing in the morning while running on empty on your caffeine meter? You may think your fried egg attempt turned into a scrambled egg because you are a walking zombie but it is probably because there is an art to perfectly flipping eggs, no matter how wired may or may not be!
lessons in curds
My mornay sauce curdled last night… alas. What began as a “I’ll just whip us up some pasta with white cheese sauce” turned into a frantic adventure in “How the heck do I UNcurdle??” Rapid speed googling turned up some interesting solutions .. none of which worked.
Let this be a lesson in what not to do…
you say tomato, i say potato
I was attempting tomato sauce with butter and onions from the Smitten Kitchen, except instead of canned whole peeled tomatoes I tried blanching my own. (I couldn’t tell you what kind of tomatoes I used … big red ones?). The sauce was awesome. I could eat cups of just the sauce.
TIP: A potato masher can be effective for breaking up the tomato pieces while they’re simmering (before adding the onion).
I used it on fettuccine and paired it with one of my favorite vegetable recipes – yeaaaaah BRUSSELS SPROUTS! I’m tired of people hatin’ on brussels sprouts. You always see them pictured in a wet pile in front of a frowning child, as if you’d really ever steam a quart of brussels sprouts plain and expect anyone, child or adult, to eat the whole bowl for their whole meal.
So I set off on a quest to concoct THE brussels sprouts recipe to convert haters.
Read the rest of this entry »
roasted rum chicken
I couldn't wait and tore a leg off before realizing I should take a pic.
I adore me some roast chicken. Growing up, one of my favorite meals was when mom would get a rotisserie chicken from Costco. I’d sit in the breakfast nook and gnaw on it to my heart’s content while my mother looked on with bewilderment and pity. “Well, enjoy your banquet. To think, $5 at Costco and you can be so happy.”
Ever since I got the hang of roasting my own bird at home (having learned the hard way what the difference is between a “baking hen” and a “whole chicken.” Don’t bake a baking hen. Go figure! (well i mean, you CAN, it’s just .. er, tricky. But anyway, I digest)) – I’ve been trying to come up with more things to do with a whole chicken, particularly involving generous helpings of alcohol. Why? Because the taste of chicken + alcohol is awesome, that’s why! My first foray using dry white vermouth gave the chicken an extra kick of flavor.. kind of sweet.. very nice.
This time, we did a generous helping of dry rum.
Conclusion: Cook with rum and you will taste a bird that definitely got a little wasted on its journey to your plate. That said, it’s never an overwhelming alcohol taste (we’re not talking Drunken Chicken here), but it’s there.
hot and sour peanut noodles
Noodles! I love noodles. You can serve them hot or cold, mild or spicy, sweet or salty. You know Chef Louis and les poissons? That’s me and noodles. My grandfather was from Shaanxi province where they ate a lot of noodles and wheat flour; and I’m convinced the affinity has been passed down to me genetically. It’s like the Lysine Contingency — if I don’t satisfy my periodic noodle cravings, I keel over like a velociyangptor, go into a coma, and die.
