Results and photos

Here's a rundown of our little anniversary dinner, with award winning photojournalism:

I survived, with one minor battle scar where I stupidly grabbed the end of the thermometer that had been hanging out in 350 degree oil, another round of deep frying---this time for chicken dumplings, a mix of dark chicken meat and aromatics enveloped in wonton wrappers, which are then coated in egg, then panko. They were quite tasty with the sweet-and-sour sauce, which had that nice light red, almost translucent look just like the little cup they put in your Chinese takeout. It was very easy to make (red pepper, garlic, red wine vinegar, honey, sugar, red pepper flakes, etc.)

The tuna was very good, though I next time I would salt the meat before cooking, and save a couple of the ingredients (namely cilantro and scallions) to add off heat after the sauce is done, so that their flavor is more vibrant. Shiitakes are offically my favorite mushroom. Slicing them was a bit like slicing marshmallows, but needless to say they tasted much better. Unfortunately the color scheme was unpleasantly monochromatic.

And finally, the poached pear dessert: I could have just eaten the marvelous ginger pastry cream and been happy, but all together the flavors were exotic and interesting. Not something I'd want every day, but that's okay because this would be prohibitively labor-intensive. I was very pleased with how the spicy shortbread "chopsticks" came out, and relieved at how easy the dough was to roll out. These would probably be great with any Asian-themed ice cream or sorbet. The pears mysteriously firmed up quite a bit while they rested in the fridge, though they had been pretty tender before, so that was a little sad. But it was a success all in all.

I love star anise.

Anniversary Dinner

Today's our anniversary, and in an unusual fit of ambition fueled most likely by self-deception, I am trying three new recipes---unless you count each component, in which case it's six new recipes---for one dinner. Thankfully, more than half of them are at least partially make-ahead, which helps tremendously. Two are from CI's Restaurant Favorites, and one is from Epicurious, which I bookmarked a while back thanks to a thread on Chowhound where at least 5 people in a row named that as one of their top 5 favorite recipes of all time. So, it's about time we tried it.

Appetizer: Crispy chicken dumplings with sweet-and-sour sauce. These are deep fried with a homemade sauce. I therefore trust that they will be good. I don't currently have a food processor so I'm not looking forward to mincing everything in the filling rather than having a machine whiz it around for 10 seconds, but I'll deal.

Main: Pan-seared tuna steaks with ginger-shiitake cream sauce. I don't think I've ever bought fresh tuna or shiitakes before. When I stopped by Fresh Market this morning I was pleasantly surprised that a) the few shiitakes they had left were on sale, and without weighing I picked out the last ones that looked good and had exactly enough for my recipe; and b) the sashimi-grade tuna was only $11/lb, which I wasn't expecting. I'll serve this over soba noodles.

Dessert: Asian poached pears with ginger pastry cream and spicy shortbread chopsticks. I have to say that it costs me something to make a dessert that does not contain chocolate in any of its parts, but I thought I should give Mike a break from my obsession already. Besides, this recipe looks really intriguing. I already made the delicious pastry cream last week (sans the ginger) for my cream puffs, so it's technically not new. I made the version with ginger this morning, and now I am waiting for the pears and poaching liquid to cool down before I run out for an errand. They smell delicious. I didn't splurge on Asian pears, as CI promised that regular grocery store hard-as-a-rock pears work great. It took mine a while longer than estimated to become tender, but I think the liquid wasn't quite simmering when I put the pears in. You would think by now I'd be fairly confident as to what simmering liquid looks like, but it's not the first time it's happened. Probably more a function of impatience than incompetence. The chopsticks look a bit daunting, but I think they'll add a nice textual and visual contrast.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Another David Lebovitz ice cream recipe, just mixed together on a whim with the perfectly ripe bananas I brought home from the farmer's market, and enriched with some of the overflowing half-and-half in the fridge rather than all whole milk (which is a very lean ice cream).
 
Pre-freezing verdict:
Whoaaaaaaaaa.

Update after it's properly become ice cream, and doused in chocolate sauce, will go here. I can't imagine my impression will change much.

Okay, update: I can't say this ice cream completely lived up to the unbelievable smell that permeated the house as the bananas were roasting with brown sugar and butter. However, that was a very high standard. It had a great flavor for such a light ice cream, and my only real problem with it was the way it froze into a rock unlike any ice cream I've made yet. I don't know if that's a function of the lower fat percentage or what, but I broke my plastic container trying to force a scoop out after it had been sitting on the counter for 10 minutes already. So, I give it a 6/10. Perfectly decent ice cream, and I'd love to try it again with the addition of some rum, as alcohol would help it freeze more softly, not to mention the obvious flavor pairing there.

Miscellanies

* For anyone who's wondering, I'm afraid the new unsweetened chocolate in an 8 oz bag for $1.99 at Trader Joe's...tastes like $0.25/oz chocolate. Surprise! I think the combination of irresistible price + fancy shape (they are little disks, 6 to an ounce) drew me in against my better judgment. I'm no chocolate connoisseur, but Trader Joe's' Pound Plus bars ($5/17.6 oz) seem to me to be much better chocolate than this; they're actually rumored to be supplied by Callebaut, a fine Belgian chocolate company. So these new unsweetened disks are cheaper per ounce even than the Pound Plus chocolate with less cocoa butter (which is where the money's at in chocolate, if I understand correctly). I should have done the math more carefully. Alas, buyer beware.

* Tonight for dinner I was going to try what looked like a fantastic eggplant-mozzarella roll recipe from CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home. I couldn't find smoked mozzarella, though I know I bought some a few months ago at Kroger and even made a trip to Trader Joe's confident that they'd have some. But that was a minor obstacle compared to the disgusting dilemma presented by the eggplant itself. I'd have preferred to buy it at one of the farmer's markets, but I wasn't going anywhere near them, so I tried to pick out a nice looking one at Kroger. On the outside it was spotless, but when I sliced down the middle getting ready for dinner tonight, there was a large black and furry mass, for lack of a better word, inside the seed cavity on one side that had "bled" over into the other side a bit. I did a Google images search for sliced eggplant, hoping against hope, but no, neither black nor furry seems to be a normal occurrence inside an eggplant. Plan B was a simple tomato sauce I had made for the same recipe earlier, over fresh (storebought) pasta with ciabatta and a Caesar salad. Boring, but it could have been worse. Like whipping the egg whites for your cheese souffle to perfect peaks, only to unwrap the cheese and find it rotten. Or something like that.


* I've been spending as much of the day as possible immersed in Spanish, with a little housework interspersed to keep my restless self from going crazy, and I can't afford to lose myself in cookbooks planning elaborate baking projects for the day, so stuff like the chocolate blackout cake happens instead. Five-minute pudding (the recipe in a previous post); an easy cake with coffee, chocolate, and buttermilk, which are as good as pantry staples around here; and an extra half hour's oven time after my bread was done baking. Since I throw everything possible into the dishwasher and have no qualms about running it twice a day when necessary, clean-up doesn't take long. The cake itself is fine, though it probably needed a couple more minutes of baking time; it's a little too moist and sticky, and so fell apart a little when I was halving it into layers. But it's something sweet that will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, which was all I was after.

Pate à choux

Pate à choux is a type of pastry that always sounded, and looked, so complicated that I never entertained the idea of trying to make it at home. I can't remember the last time I ate any, either, because we don't exactly frequent restaurants with profiteroles and Paris-Brest on the menu. (We go to Chipotle on special occasions, and take out chicken pho that is actually really good from a place nearby when M is sick.) But Michael Ruhlman (via his book Ratio) convinced me to try pate à choux when he wrote, essentially twice in this one little chapter, that he has no idea why it's not usually part of the home cook's repertoire, since it is easy, fast, economical, and extremely versatile. And delicate and French and pastry at the same time. Wow. Say no more.

So pate à choux consists of nothing more than butter, water, salt, sugar (if it's going to be used in a dessert), flour, and eggs. The preparation is unique, but nothing resembling advanced pastry skills is needed: you bring the water, butter, salt, and sugar to a simmer in a medium saucepan, then stir in the flour quickly, at which point it becomes a soft, homemade-playdough-like dough that you cook for another minute or two to let it release some of the water. The dough must be cooled so that the eggs do not cook too quickly (i.e. scramble), so after a few minutes' rest you whip in whole eggs, one at a time, which eventually assimilate themselves into the dough, which starts looking like a batter again.

Then all you do is pipe out logs for eclairs, or just spoon golf-sized balls, onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. They're baked at 425 for 10 minutes, then the temp is reduced to 350 and they continue cooking another 10-20 minutes, during which they start rising and puffing out quite a bit. I chose to make little balls for cream puffs and they were pretty much done after 20 minutes.

For filling I adapted a recipe for pastry cream from CI's Restaurant Favorites (which I am incapable of simply opening to find a particular recipe---I always get drawn in and lose myself for a few minutes in glorious possibilties such as Asian five-spice chocolate cake, or pear and green tea sorbet, or cannoli gelato...). It called for half-and-half instead of cream (which I did not buy this week), and a fairly modest amount of egg yolks. It was very quick and tastes not too rich or cloying to me, which has been the case with other pastry cream recipes. I opened the cream puffs halfway around the middle and scooped in some cream, then drizzled a lazy chocolate sauce (half-and-half heated, poured over 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate and vanilla, whisked til smooth).

Even if pate à choux were much more complicated, I would be willing to make it again. These were delicate, positively cloud-like, and though they possibly needed a tad more sugar, I thought they were perfect with a filling and a fairly sweet sauce on top.  Now that I know how unbelievably easy and versatile this pastry is, I'm afraid I might be making it more than is good for us in days to come...

(photos next time, my camera batteries went out on me and I was more interested in eating dessert than going to look for replacement batteries at the moment...)

West African Sweet Potato Peanut Soup

Another winner from CI's Best International Recipe, I first made this soup in November---memorably, because that was the day our sink disposal clogged horribly as I was washing the many sweet potato peelings down it---without feeling much affection towards it. It was okay but had a taste in the background that I wasn't a huge fan of. I thought I'd try it again this weekend for lunch, and was pleasantly surprised at how much better it turned out with just a couple of changes.

All I had in my "allium basket" (where I keep onions, shallots, and garlic) today were shallots, so I had to sub two medium in place of half an onion. (I was halving the recipe. As an aside, I have gotten so much better at doing this: if the consequences of messing up would be enormous and/or I'm feeling like it's a blonde day, I'll write out the new proportions in pencil or on a separate sheet of paper before I start cooking, but usually I do it in my head and have no problem remembering that I am changing the amounts. That used to be SO not the case.) I sauteed the shallots with a little salt and brown sugar just til soft, then added a large minced clove of garlic with coriander and and a pinch cayenne (not even enough that I could taste it). Once that's fragrant, you add 1 3/4 cups chicken broth and 1 cup water, plus a mere 1 1/2 Tbsp. of peanut butter (the flavor comes through nevertheless) and a 1-lb. sweet potato, quartered and sliced thin. This is supposed to simmer on low, partially covered, for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are tender, but I apparently sliced them thinner than CI did---with a rare lack of precision, they didn't specify slice width down to 1/8 of an inch, so I was guessing what they meant by "thin"---so this soup was almost a 30-minute ordeal all told. I pureed it in two batches and added a little fresh ground pepper and cinnamon, which I find irresistible in all things sweet potato, and much more agreeble than the suggested cilantro. This was a tasty, and quite filling, sweet potato soup.

the scoop so far on The Perfect Scoop

Earlier this week I made my third recipe from David Lebovitz's book on all manner of icy desserts, The Perfect Scoop. Previously I made the cranberry-orange sorbet, which tasted healthy and somewhat more like strawberries than cranberries---which is okay, just a puzzling effect. I was glad to have a good way to use up some of the cranberries in my freezer, and it made a decent dessert. Next I tried a lemon ice cream recipe Lebovitz passed on from a friend, promising it was terrific. It was a nice concept, but the half-and-half I got was the store brand and it had that...particular flavor that low quality dairy products have sometimes, no matter how "fresh" they are. I would definitely be willing to make it again with a better choice of half-and-half brand.

(Oh, insert a long and boring story about another recipe from this book that I tried...and tried... and couldn't get to work: the last chapter contains recipes for "vessels," e.g. lemon-poppyseed cookie cups: trying to transfer the baked cookies, which are very thin and lacy, to overturned cups functioning as molds was impossible. Still not sure what I did wrong there.)

But this week I hit a home run with the Philadelphia-style (non-custard, i.e. quick and easy) vanilla ice cream, into which I mixed his basic fudge ripple. Both components were better than what I was hoping for, which is saying something, as I had to sub milk for a full two thirds of the cream due to a goof-up (mine) at the grocery store. You have the option of using 3 cups of cream or 2 cups of cream and 1 cup of whole milk. I was forced to reverse that to 1 cup cream and 2 cups whole milk, so I was worried it would be icy and grainy---as Lebovitz explains somewhere in the book, the amount of fat in ice cream has a lot to do with its creamy, smooth texture, so the reader is forbidden from subbing low- or (certainly) non-fat milk in any recipe. (For those who are thus tempted, I suppose the sorbet chapter is where he'd direct you.)
 
Despite the significantly lower fat content, this ice cream is absolutely delicious and perfectly rich. I'm so glad to know this version---as opposed to the custard-style with 6 egg yolks and 2 cups of cream---can be my go-to recipe. For me the fudge ripple makes it a stand-alone dessert, but brownies are never a bad idea. (For those I favor the Cook's Illustrated recipe with unsweetened chocolate and cake flour.)

Morello cherries are nice on top.

Ham & egg pastries; mini palmiers

Friday night I made ham and egg puff pastry squares from CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home. I had previously made this for brunch, with a cream sauce I opted out of this time, and had an extra sheet of puff pastry from that I needed to use up. Obviously it's very hard to go wrong with 1) puff pastry 2) Black Forest ham 3) Gouda (which I subbed for the cheddar called for) and 4) soft scrambled eggs.

For the pastries, you unfold a sheet of pastry and cut out a 9" circle. This leaves you with a significant amount of scraps left over. I decided this was unacceptable and Googled around for an easy way to use them. Behold, mini palmiers: you just stack the scraps of dough on top of each other (do not squeeze together or knead them), then roll them out into a rough rectangle. Sprinkle the rectangle generously with cinnamon sugar. Starting from one short end, roll tightly halfway up. Roll the same way from the other end til they meet. Using a sharp knife, slice the dough lengthwise into 1/4 to 1/2" palmiers. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 400 for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Saturday for dinner I was planning another tapas sort of thing, but I was lethargic and we were out much of the day and I couldn't get excited about labor-intensive stuffed mushrooms and salt cod in tomato garlic confit, which didn't really go together anyway. I had Mike find me an easy recipe online (which means I'm really in an anti-cooking stupor), a Martha Stewart one in fact, and I ended up using the last of my precious salt cod on pan-fried fish cakes. They certainly weren't bad, but I felt a little silly.

Today we managed to sleep for no less than three hours in the middle of the afternoon (M hasn't been sleeping well, but I have, so I have no idea what's wrong with me), hence the time stamp on this post. Somehow shortly after we emerged from hibernation we were hungry, so I heated up Julia Child's cream of leek and potato soup which I made Friday, and made some small Gruyere and sauteed mushroom burgers. Yes, burgers and French soup, a classic combination. I will say the Gruyere-mushroom combination works très bien, but I think everybody except me already knew that.

Pork vindaloo: funny name, serious stew*

*(with apologies to Schlotzsky's.)

This week I cooked Indian food for the first time ever. I've shied away from it up til now, because truth be told I haven't really ever eaten Indian food. I don't think the Amy's frozen meals my erstwhile vegetarian sister (coincidentally also named Amy) introduced us to should count. I was going to go Chinese with the Boston butt I bought, but I didn't plan so well and ended up having to go with this pantry-friendly recipe I had copied out of CI's Best Meat Recipe a few months ago.

Completely new to me, pork vindaloo is a moderately spicy Indian pork stew with some sort of Portugese ancestry as well. I was missing two spices called for by this recipe, cardamom and mustard seeds, but between the cumin, cayenne, and tremendous amount of aromatics (3 onions and 8 garlic cloves) I figured I'd be okay with those omissions. (To any Indian cooks reading, don't make fun of me, but I stirred in a little Dijon in a half-hearted attempt to make up for the mustard seeds. I can't help it, I'm increasingly of the persuasion that Dijon makes everything better. Strange indeed from someone who thought it tasted like pungent old shoes that made your nose hurt up til a couple years ago.)

I made the stew in the morning, as it takes about half an hour of stovetop cooking, then 2 hours (with no stirring or shifting or checking!) in a 300 degree oven. The no stirring etc. part is rare for CI recipes, so I was elated to see that for once I could forget about the kitchen and get on with other things during those two hours. I reheated it for dinner and served it over a rice pilaf with shallot and a touch of cinnamon, and this green bean dish (which is easily decreased by a third to make just enough for two side servings). Everything was delicious. The stew I definitely want to try again with the mustard seeds, as I think they'd add some necessary heat. Flavor-wise even with my omissions (and amateur addition) it was very good. I also don't know why I don't make rice pilaf more often: it's about 2% more difficult than throwing rice directly into boiling water, and so much tastier. The green beans---wow. I really wasn't sure how such a Southern staple vegetable would taste in the coconut milk and spices, but it worked, majorly. I'd call this first foray into Indian cooking (whether or not it may be judged authentic) a success.

everyday chocolate pudding

I've found the chocolate pudding I've been looking for all my life: no cream, no egg yolks leaving me with a bowl of whites in the fridge that eventually gets thrown away because I have a visceral dread of whipping egg whites, and no special mixture of unsweetened and bittersweet chocolates. All of which were true of the chocolate cream pie I made at Thankgsiving, which was probably worth it. But this tastes darn near the same to me, and it takes about 10 minutes plus chilling time.

Recalling the cute little "cup of dirt" concept I served this with chocolate wafers crumbled on top---no thanks on the gummy worms. I can't resist putting whipped cream on just about anything sweet, though I couldn't figure out what a puff of white would signify in a cup of dirt. Let's say snow.

Everyday Chocolate Pudding
Serves 6-ish
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup milk (can be low-fat)
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 tsp. vanilla

Whisk together the cornstarch, granulated sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the half-and-half and milk, then bring to a boil over medium heat. Add chocolate and whisk til melted and the mixture thickens noticeably. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface of the pudding. Refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours. Keeps up to 3 days.