I've finally subscribed to Cook's Illustrated, and I love it! Previously, I would stock up at the library on old issues... but to have my own copy- よかったですね！
They have great podcasts (FREE), with short videos and recipes, check it out:
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/podcast
You can also subscribe through iTunes :)
3.26.2008
Anticipating good weather...
Yeah I know, it snowed today, during Spring Break, and yet I am thinking about summer fruit salads!
I made this recipe last year for a dinner party- total hit! The basic idea is making a reduction sauce (don't worry, not scary like it might sound!), and then dripping it over fruit-- easy right?!!
One caveat: the sauce is pretty flavorful, so don't put it on the fruit, store it in the fridge overnight and think you're going to eat it... bottom line, put the sauce on when serving!
Fruit Salad with Lime-Ginger Sauce
Simmer for a while until it is syrupy, reduced to 1/4 cup (15-20 minutes):
1 C lime juice
1/4 C sugar
1/4 tea salt
Then take off the heat and add:
1 TB lime zest
1 inch or 1 TB ginger, minced (you'll strain this later)
1 TB lemon juice
Steep 1 minute and strain it, pour over fruit:
honeydew melon
mango
blueberries
(or anything you've got on hand!)
I made this recipe last year for a dinner party- total hit! The basic idea is making a reduction sauce (don't worry, not scary like it might sound!), and then dripping it over fruit-- easy right?!!
One caveat: the sauce is pretty flavorful, so don't put it on the fruit, store it in the fridge overnight and think you're going to eat it... bottom line, put the sauce on when serving!
Fruit Salad with Lime-Ginger Sauce
Simmer for a while until it is syrupy, reduced to 1/4 cup (15-20 minutes):
1 C lime juice
1/4 C sugar
1/4 tea salt
Then take off the heat and add:
1 TB lime zest
1 inch or 1 TB ginger, minced (you'll strain this later)
1 TB lemon juice
Steep 1 minute and strain it, pour over fruit:
honeydew melon
mango
blueberries
(or anything you've got on hand!)
Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti
With fresh hazelnuts from my grandmother's friend's farm, these are delightful! I started with this recipe, but made my own whole-wheat tweaks. Use a stand mixer, this dough is really stiff and sticky!
Toast 1.5 C hazelnuts in a dry pan, then rub with a cloth to remove skins, and chop coarsley. Set aside. You can toast and chop nuts in advance, just store in the fridge.
Cream in a standing mixer:
1 C butter
2 C sugar
Then add 3 eggs and beat until fluffy. Add 1.5 tea vanilla & 1/2 tea almond extract.
In a small mixing bowl, sift together:
1 C all purpose flour
2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 tea baking soda
1 tea baking powder
1/2 tea salt
2/3 C cocoa powder
Pour dry ingredients into wet in 3 batches, stirring in between.
Now add the toasted chopped hazelnuts and 1 C chocolate chips.
Refrigerate to chill the dough for 20-30 minutes. If you don't chill it, you end up with super flat large biscotti that aren't very pretty and much harder to handle.
Preheat the oven to 350 F and mound the dough into 3 logs, about 2" wide by 2" tall and however long you can fit on the pan. They will flatten and spread a bit, so allow an inch or two on all sides.
Bake for 35 minutes, let cool. Move to cutting board and cut into 1" slices. Return slices to baking tray, but with one of the cut sides down. Bake for 15 more minutes at 350 F.
Serve with coffee or tea, or just dunk in milk.
Store in an airtight container, or freeze. These are extra good straight out of the fridge- even better than room temperature, I think.
Toast 1.5 C hazelnuts in a dry pan, then rub with a cloth to remove skins, and chop coarsley. Set aside. You can toast and chop nuts in advance, just store in the fridge.
Cream in a standing mixer:
1 C butter
2 C sugar
Then add 3 eggs and beat until fluffy. Add 1.5 tea vanilla & 1/2 tea almond extract.
In a small mixing bowl, sift together:
1 C all purpose flour
2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 tea baking soda
1 tea baking powder
1/2 tea salt
2/3 C cocoa powder
Pour dry ingredients into wet in 3 batches, stirring in between.
Now add the toasted chopped hazelnuts and 1 C chocolate chips.
Refrigerate to chill the dough for 20-30 minutes. If you don't chill it, you end up with super flat large biscotti that aren't very pretty and much harder to handle.
Preheat the oven to 350 F and mound the dough into 3 logs, about 2" wide by 2" tall and however long you can fit on the pan. They will flatten and spread a bit, so allow an inch or two on all sides.
Bake for 35 minutes, let cool. Move to cutting board and cut into 1" slices. Return slices to baking tray, but with one of the cut sides down. Bake for 15 more minutes at 350 F.
Serve with coffee or tea, or just dunk in milk.
Store in an airtight container, or freeze. These are extra good straight out of the fridge- even better than room temperature, I think.
Milk Tea Cupcakes with Vanilla-Rose Frosting
My imagination actually worked today, these were amazing!! I took an old "silver white cake" recipe, and simmered jasmine tea leaves in the milk for it! Thanks Lori for putting it all together and taking amazing photos!
MILK TEA CAKE
Blend 30 seconds on low speed, scraping down the bowl, then beat on high for 2 minutes.
2.25 C cake flour
1.25 - 1.5 C sugar
3.5 tea baking powder
1 tea salt
1/2 C shortening
1 C milk, simmered in 1-2 TB black tea (darjeeling, black, jasmine)
1 tea or more vanilla
Add and beat 2 minutes at high speed:
4 egg whites
Pour into a cupcake pan with liners and bake in 350 F degree oven for 20 minutes (cupcakes), or 30-40 minutes for in a big pan.
VANILLA-ROSE FROSTING
Beat in standing mixer until loose:
8 oz cream cheese or neufatel (sp?)
Then add & beat until all the clumps are gone:
5 TB butter, partly melted
1 TB milk
1/4 tea vanilla extract
3/4 tea rose water
Add and stir until proper consistency for spreading:
1 C powdered sugar (or more, but I don't like it too sweet)
3.25.2008
New Yellow (?) Shrimp Curry
I tried this last night from a favorite curry book, but it didn't look a thing like the picture! Luckily it tasted amazing-- we gulped it down in 5 minutes! The flavors are perfectly balanced, you will have to experiment with the jalapeno to get the right spiciness, you could sub serrano peppers if you are adventurous. It tastes mostly like a yellow curry to me, especially because of the high quality coconut milk I used (I recommend A Taste of Thai's "Coconut Milk- Unsweetened/first pressing", it's got a nice layer of coconut cream on the top and makes a great coconut pudding...)
It took about an hour to make, but that is probably because it was my first time making it. I would suggest doing the prep earlier in the day (measuring all the spices etc.), then it will come together quicker. Serve on basmati rice.
Measure & prep:
a. ½ tea mustard seeds; 10 curry leaves
b. slice 1 onion (the food processor’s slicer disk is perfect), or cut up into smaller pieces if you want smoother texture
c. 1 TB grated ginger, 3 or more garlic cloves chopped, 1-3 jalapeno peppers chopped
d. 1-2 whole dried red chile sliced, 1 tea red chile powder, ½ tea turmeric, ½ tea coriander powder, ½ tea cumin, 2 TB water
e. chop 2 tomatoes (or use slicing disk)
f. Mix tamarind concentrate (1/4 tea – ½ tea) or 1 TB tamarind pulp with ½ cup water. If you are using pulp, then strain it before using (stringy curry is gross ok?)
g. Peel 1 lb shrimp
STEPS
It took about an hour to make, but that is probably because it was my first time making it. I would suggest doing the prep earlier in the day (measuring all the spices etc.), then it will come together quicker. Serve on basmati rice.
Measure & prep:
a. ½ tea mustard seeds; 10 curry leaves
b. slice 1 onion (the food processor’s slicer disk is perfect), or cut up into smaller pieces if you want smoother texture
c. 1 TB grated ginger, 3 or more garlic cloves chopped, 1-3 jalapeno peppers chopped
d. 1-2 whole dried red chile sliced, 1 tea red chile powder, ½ tea turmeric, ½ tea coriander powder, ½ tea cumin, 2 TB water
e. chop 2 tomatoes (or use slicing disk)
f. Mix tamarind concentrate (1/4 tea – ½ tea) or 1 TB tamarind pulp with ½ cup water. If you are using pulp, then strain it before using (stringy curry is gross ok?)
g. Peel 1 lb shrimp
STEPS
- Heat 3 TB oil and add mustard seeds, they will pop and spatter (be careful!). Then add the 10 curry leaves, stir. Then add onions, sauté until golden (took me 10 minutes maybe on electric stove)
- Add “c” from above (ginger, garlic, jalapeno), stir, let cook 2 minutes
- Add “d” above (red chile, turmeric, coriander, cumin, water), stir and cook 2 minutes
- Add tomatoes (e), ½ cup water, and tamarind (f), simmer 5-10 minutes or until tomatoes are squishy.
- Add 1 can coconut milk (get the good stuff, not “lite” crap), and ½ tea salt; stir.
- Add the peeled shrimp (g), cook gently, 2-5 minutes until shrimp is pink.
- Optional garnish: You can add melted butter/sliced shallot/curry leaves mixture to the curry and let sink in for a minute, then serve.
Home-made Chai Tea
This is amazing! No more "chai tea" bags for me!
Bring to boil in medium-large saucepan (must hold 4 cups):
4-6 Cups water
cinnamon stick
1 TB minced ginger
4 cloves, whole
cardamom (I used about 1/4 tea of the seeds since I didn't have whole pods)
1/4 tea black peppercorns, crushed (with a spoon or something)
1/2 tea nutmeg, ground
optional: 2 allspice berries
Cover, reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes
Add and bring to a simmer:
2 cups rice milk (or you can use cow-milk...)
4 TB sugar or less
Then add 2 TB black tea (Lipton "yellow label tea" is my favorite), cover, turn off heat, let steep for 2 minutes (or less if you have really strong tea).
Strain and enjoy!
Bring to boil in medium-large saucepan (must hold 4 cups):
4-6 Cups water
cinnamon stick
1 TB minced ginger
4 cloves, whole
cardamom (I used about 1/4 tea of the seeds since I didn't have whole pods)
1/4 tea black peppercorns, crushed (with a spoon or something)
1/2 tea nutmeg, ground
optional: 2 allspice berries
Cover, reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes
Add and bring to a simmer:
2 cups rice milk (or you can use cow-milk...)
4 TB sugar or less
Then add 2 TB black tea (Lipton "yellow label tea" is my favorite), cover, turn off heat, let steep for 2 minutes (or less if you have really strong tea).
Strain and enjoy!
2.04.2008
Chocoholics Beware: Budino
I happened across a neat book of recipes for chocolate, my only complaints are that the pictures are not close to the recipes, necessitating page flipping... but so far the recipes are great!
Like usual, I adapted the recipe to suit what I had on hand, considering it was late at night and I just craved chocolate. These things are brownie meets fudge meets pudding and upon one bite I decided my next party pleaser. They taste even better cold out of the fridge (who knew?!) as the pudding part solidifies. Get a buddy to help you with part 1 or 2 and it will go quick!
Part One: Chocolate and Double-Boiler
Chop up 6 ounces of chocolate (melts easier that way) and add it to a double boiler set up with 1 stick of butter. You are going to melt the chocolate-butter over boiling water. The whole point of this tedious method is to avoid burning chocolate. Stir it too. Once the chocolate mixture is homogenous, remove from heat, and add 1 TB all-purpose flour and 1.5 TB vanilla or liquor of choice.
Part Two: Beating Eggs and Stuff
Beat 3 eggs, 2/3 C sugar, a pinch of salt at high speed. It will take a while ( 5 minutes?) to get it looking like thick yellow pudding that is lighter than what you started with. Don't overbeat or you lose the volume from the eggs.
Hopefully your chocolate is cooler now (don't want to cook the eggs). In a further effort to not cook the eggs (yet), fold a bit of the eggs (part 2) into the chocolate (part 1). I've heard this raises the temperature slowly which prevents cooking.
Then dump all of it into the bowl with the eggs. Blend carefully but get it all mixed.
Spoon the mixture into 6 ramekins (oven safe individual cups), and bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees F. It will seem undercooked, this is fine. If you overcook, you loose the texture and sinuous chocolate flavor.
You can bake in a regular baking pan, but it becomes more of a brownie, you need the ramekins to get the crispy exterior and gooey interior.
(Thanks Chris for more beautiful photography!)
Breadsticks with GARLIC!
I have been on a library cookbook binge lately and enjoying this book...
I did a variation on a recipe there to get these breadsticks. The dough is perfect to handle, nice and stretchy (didn't even need a rolling pin!) and I made a garlic-butter-herb paste that was smelly but fantastic.
Combine and let the yeast get foamy (if it doesn't, then your yeast is bad, get new stuff and start over):
1/4 C warm water (should fell warm to your finger, not "hot")
3/4 tea sugar
2.25 tea yeast
Whisk together in a bigger bowl:
2.25 C all-purpose flour
1 C whole-wheat bread flour (or anything with high gluten content)
3/4 tea salt
Then add and knead:
yeast mixture
little less than 1 C cold water (you can put ice cubes in it when you start the recipe)
couple gobs olive oil ( 2 TBs ?)
Let the dough rise in warm place for 45 minutes to an hour, and by warm you should be able to hold your hand against the surface (i.e. if you put in the oven).
I used my food processor to make a butter-oil-garlic-herb spread:
6-9 cloves garlic
1.5 TB basil
1 Tb oregano
1 TB rosemary
2 tea thyme
1 tea salt
pepper flakes or something spicy, not too much
2 TB butter
olive oil as needed
Once the dough has risen, you can spread it out in a large rectangle and spread your smelly herb-garlic paste over it, then sprinkling a generous amount of meltable cheese ( 2 cups?). I like to fold the dough in half over itself, seal in the goodies, then cut into strips with a pizza cutter. These strips are easy to twist and place on a baking sheet, then let rise again (30minutes?).
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes. Delish with marinara sauce (my suggestion is Trader Joe's Three Cheese Marinara, ooooo!)
2.03.2008
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
As my friend L says, "here are my delicious cookies!! AREN'T you jealous!!!"
Cucumber Salad and more
While whipping up a quick curry (fried tofu + broccoli + Trader Joe's Punjab Curry Sauce on rice), I spied cucumber and radishes in the fridge and thought, hey!
Tammy's Cucumber-Radish Salad
Combine in a bowl:
4 radishes, sliced thin
1 cucumber, diced
2 TB fresh mint leaves, chopped
Add the dressing after mixing:
1 TB apple cider vinegar
1 TB brown sugar pinch of black pepper
1.5- 2 TB lemon juice
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