Spicy BBQ Sauce

The only reason that this recipe is interesting is because the standard recipe (from seriouseats.com) that I intended to follow required Worcestershire sauce, and I didn't have any. So I had to improvise. And it came out surprisingly well! Of course, what normal person would have mango chutney, but no Worcestershire sauce?

Ingredients

2T Mango chutney - use mostly the liquid - the fruit is too pulpy

4T Fish sauce (I use Red Boat)

4T Dark soy sauce

1/2 t Toasted Sesame Oil

1/2 t Ghost pepper vodka (can substitute Tabasco or other pepper sauce, US srirarcha, etc. in appropriate quantities)

2 Cups Tomato Ketchup

2T Prepared yellow mustard

1/4 Cup firmly packed brown sugar

2T Molasses

1/4 Cup Cider vinegar

1T Smoked Paprika

1/2 T Garlic Powder

1/2 T Onion Powder

1/2 T Black pepper - ground finely

1t Cumin - ground finely

Method

Make up the fake Worcestershire sauce by combing the chutney, fish sauce, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and hot sauce. 

Combine the made up Worcestershire sauce with all the other ingredients in a non reactive pan. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, stirring often. Simmer/low boil for 15 minutes to allow to reduce and thicken. Stir almost continuously to prevent the sugars from sticking and burning.

Fish out any pulp from the mango chutney (if some had accidentally found their way into the sauce.

Allow to cool, and refrigerate. According the the Serious Eats web site, this should keep for a long time.

This sauce is very intensely flavored, so if using it on delicate meat (aka a pork loin), be sparing.

Potato Rolls

This recipe makes soft rolls that are really good as sandwich bases. As usual, when baking I weigh things, so it may be tough to convert to volume measures. This really is best done using a stand mixer. Working butter into a sticky dough is a chore by hand.

Ingredients

12 oz water

1 oz honey

1 tsp instant yeast - yeah I cheated and didn't weigh this

16 oz bread flour

3 oz semolina

1.5 oz powdered dry milk

1 oz instant mashed potato flakes (easier than baking a potato for the small amount needed)

1/3 oz salt

1 oz unsalted butter at room temperature.

Method

Combine the water, honey, flour, semolina, potato flakes, yeast, dry milk into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the dough hook knead until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Add the salt, and the butter gradually. Knead until the dough is shiny and elastic.

Lightly oil a bowl and turn the dough out into the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough proof for at least an hour - until it has doubled in size.

Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured board and shape into 12 rolls (~4oz dough per roll(. Lay them out onto a parchment lined sheet pan, sprinkle with a little rice flour, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove the sheet pan from the fridge. Turn the oven to 350 and allow to heat up. Give the oven at least 15 minutes after it has achieved its target temperature.

Uncover the rolls (they will have been out of the refrigerator for about 40 minutes) and bake for about 25 - or until they are well browned.

Beef in a towel (Lomo Al Trapo)

The folks at Serious Eats have done it again. Kenji posted about the method of cooking beef tenderloin in Colombia (where his wife is from). Essentially it is a hunk of tender, lean meat encased in salt, wrapped in cotton, tied up and placed directly on the coals. It really is that easy as it turns out.

There are a couple of wrinkles, however. It is probably best if you cut the tapered end off the tenderloin. It makes the wrapping a bit easier. We left it on, and folded it back on itself. It worked fine. We also used cheesecloth and not a towel. I didn't want any dyes/man made materials in the towel. We used kosher salt (Morton's). But next time I may use something a bit more exotic.

Ingredients

1 whole beef tenderloin, trimmed, chain and silverskin removed. - About 3 lbs

1 box Morton's Kosher Salt (3lbs)

Enough cheesecloth to wrap the meat - ensure that there are four layers of cheesecloth to prevent the salt from falling through.

Butchers twine to tie up the wrapped meat and hold the cloth/salt in place

Method

About 30 minutes before you want to start cooking use a mixture of charcoal and wood to get a fire going in your grill. We used the Primo - the right size and shape. This won't work on gas - it doesn't get hot enough. In our case the thermometer in the lid registered 800F - so directly on the coals it was probably hotter.

Make the parcel of meat by spreading the 4 layers of cheesecloth out and covering with the whole box of Morton's salt. You will want the salt spread so it is nearly at the front edge of the cheesecloth. 

Roll the cheesecloth tightly, tucking in the ends. You need to ensure that the salt covers the whole tenderloin. Introduce a few sprigs of rosemary as well.

Tie the parcel off at 2" intervals using butchers twine and a butcher's/surgeon's knot.

Put the parcel of meat directly on the coals. Nestle it in and leave for 10 minutes or so. After 10 minutes, turn the parcel over and cook for a further 10 - 15 minutes (until the internal temp of the meat is 95 for rare, 105 -110 for medium rare. If those temperatures look low that's because you get a lot of carry over cooking with the salt wrapper. Don't leave a thermometer in all the time - most such thermometers are not capable of handling such intense heat.

Once the meat has reached the desired internal temperature, Take it off the grill and place in a heat proof pan.

As can be seen in the picture above, it looks pretty nasty at this stage. 

After it has rested for at least 30 minutes, cut open the parcel and brush excess salt off the exposed meat.

Transfer to the cutting board, ready for slicing

Brush further salt off, slice into 1 1/2" thick slices and serve.

As can be seen, this is pretty rare. It tasted absolutely amazing, however.

Serve with horseradish cream (prepared horseradish, home made mayonnaise, and a little yogurt). Roasted potatoes were well received too! Here's their recipe.

Cinnamon buns - again

My sister has been raving about some cinnamon buns that she had from a bakery in Cornwall. I have posted about these before. But whatever I did, they didn't measure up to her exacting standards. She finally sent me a picture of what she was after. So I figured that I would try to replicate them. Not an easy task as it turns out. But over the weekend I had a cinnamon bun from "The Village Baking Company" here in Texas and I now understand what Alison was going on about. I set to re-recreating the buns. Who in their right mind would attempt to make a laminated dough in the Texas heat? No one that I can think of!

The brioche dough seems to be a bit weird. It is incredibly dry - until the butter is added. Then it comes out beautiful and silky. But I was a bit worried looking at the liquid ratios.

There is lots of butter in use. Butter in the dough, butter in the laminations, butter in the cinnamon....

Sorry about the metric measures, folks. I do all my baking that way.

 Sinful Cinnamon Bun

 Just out of the oven

Ingredients - The Dough

1 Kg Bread Flour

70 g 2% milk

5 g half and half (approximates whole milk - very approximate - I eyeballed the calculation)

4 egg yolks (of course the whites went into macaroons)

6 whole eggs

20 g salt

15 g rapid rise yeast

150 g unsalted butter cut into 12 cubes

A further 375 g unsalted butter for lamination

Method - The Dough

Warm the milk and half cream to about 90F. Add the sugar and the yeast, to allow the yeast to hydrate. Whisk the milk/sugar mixture with the eggs until completely combined.

Whisk together the flour and salt. Stir in the egg/milk mixture to make a shaggy dough. Turn out on to a board and knead gently. It is too stiff for my Kitchenaid mixer at this point. Stretch and fold four times over the next hour until the gluten is well developed.

Place the dough into the bowl of the mixer, fitted with the dough hook. Knead slowly, adding the butter one cube at a time. It will take about 20 minutes to get all the butter mixed in and for the dough to become smooth again.

Leave the dough to rise at room temperature for an hour and then refrigerate overnight.

Method - Lamination

The key to lamination is to make sure that everything stays cold. Hard to do in a Texas kitchen in the summer.

Pound the refrigerated butter flat between 2 sheets of cling wrap - or inside a plastic bag. The butter must not become warmer than about 60F.

Roll the cold dough out into a large rectangle. Place the butter into the rectangle and then fold the rectangle over the butter into thirds. Roll very lightly and immediately wrap the dough and return it to the refrigerator for an hour. 

After an hour, chill the work surface with ice bags/freezer packs. Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll into a rectangle again and then rewrap and refrigerate - 1/2 hour should be adequate.

Repeat the chilling, unwrapping and rolling twice more, resulting in a 30" by 10" (75cm x 25 cm) rectangle. Now ready for the filling and baking.

Filling - Ingredients

3T finely ground cinnamon

8T granulated sugar (I used Bravetart's toasted sugar). I didn't want brown sugar's flavors

100g melted butter

pinch of salt

Method

Grease 2 12 muffin pans with non-stick spray. Spread the butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture over the rolled out dough. Using a pizza wheel cut the dough into strips about 1 1/4" in width (10" lengths). Roll each strip into a wheel and place into the muffin pan. It should be quite crowded. Cover the tins and refrigerate while heating the oven to 350F. Again keeping the butter from premature melting is key.

Once the oven is heated, place the prepared muffin tins into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes - until the tops of the rolls are browned and the internal temperature is 205F.

Note, if I were to do this again, I would make much more cinnamon/butter/sugar and put some in the bottom of each. These weren't quite as gooey cinnamony as I would have liked. Nut not too bad for a first attempt! 

Ajvar - red pepper and egg plant spread

An article about the Balkan dish called ajvar appeared in the New York Times recently. It looked insanely good, so of course I had to make it. I didn't exactly follow the NYT recipe, but I knew what I was trying to achieve, so went for it with gusto. And I am glad I did. It is amazingly good. Concentrated, smokey - one of those things that would make shoe leather taste good.

Ingredients

10 large red peppers

1 large Italian eggplant

1 garlic bulb

1/2 cup high quality olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin if possible)

Salt

Method

Over a very hot grill (charcoal in my case because I was cooking dinner at the same time) roast the peppers and eggplant until their skins are completely black. After the peppers and egg plant have been on for about 10 minutes, put the whole garlic bulb on too. Put the peppers into a bowl and cover to allow them to steam - this helps when it is time to peel them.

Peel the peppers, discarding skin and as many of the seeds as possible. Scoop the flesh out of the eggplant. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulb. Place these ingredients into the food processor and pulse until slightly chunky.

Add the oil and salt to taste and process until almost smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and reduce the mixture by driving off some of the water. Do this over low heat to make sure it doesn't burn. When the volume is reduced by about 1/2 (probably 30 minutes), transfer to a heat proof container. Cover, allow to cool and then refrigerate overnight. 

Gazpacho

I wanted to make a locally sourced dish for a "slow food" event here in Dallas. Of course I turned to the clever folks at Serious Eats for some pointers. I was less interested in a recipe from them, much more interested in techniques to create something like I have had in Spain. There were several obvious things and a couple of genius ahas. With a twist of my own at the end.

I didn't want this to be liquid salsa, nor did I want cold canned tomato soup. I wanted something special. That meant the ripest tomatoes that I could find (thank you Coppell Farmers' Market and the Fisher Family Farm), and locally grown peppers and onions.

First the Serious Eats genius:

• Cut up the vegetables and salt them all together. This extracts a lot of juice.
• Pour that juice over the bread and leave to stand
• Freeze the remaining vegetable parts. The recipe said 30 minutes, but I needed a full hour. But I was making a larger quantity.
• Thaw the vegetables and add them to the bread/juice. Keep some juice back

And the personal addition? The reserved juice after thawing is frozen into tomato-y ice cubes to be served with the soup to keep it cold, but not to dilute the flavors..

For serving - because this was a potluck event, I used a wine decanter. And had some olive oil, croutons, sea salt, sherry vinegar to act as final flavorings. It turned out to be a useful way to serve it because it could then be poured into glasses,

Pate a Choux

I can't believe that I didn't have a choux paste recipe lying around somewhere. This is a bit of a departure for me because I measure by volume rather than weight when making this.
A mistake that I have made in the past is not beating the flour mixture enough before adding the eggs. You do need some gluten development to help with the structure. I typically use bread flour to guard against this too. They are so airy that it doesn't hurt.

Ingredients

1 Cup water

1 Stick butter (4 oz)

1/4t Salt

1/2t sugar

1 Cup bread flour

4 large eggs - room temperature

Method

Place the water and butter into a saucepan and bring to the boil.  In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt and sugar. When the water is boiling, shouut the flour mixture into the water. Stir hard until the flour is well mixed. Then beat using a wooden spoon until a mass has formed and there is some slight covering in the pan.

Turn out into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Beat for a minute or so, and then add the eggs one at a time. Wait until each egg is well incorporated and the mixture is somewhat glossy before adding the next egg.

When the last egg has been incorporated, use the paste immediately - or refrigerate for up to 3 days.

To bake Choux pastry items, the oven needs to be set to 400F. For small puffs allow about 20 minutes. For eclairs around 25. For a large Gougere at least 35 minutes.

Interpreting a recipe

My sister has been waxing lyrical about the cinnamon buns from the Da Bara bakery in Cornwall (SW England). She dug around and found a recipe for them and gave it to me to try. She tried it herself too, Somewhat mixed results.

Here is the recipe copied from her note to me.

Makes 8

For the Buns

300 ml Whole Milk

50 gm Butter 

225 gm Plain Flour

200 gm Bread Flour

7 gm Fast Acting Yeast

60 gm Caster Sugar

1/2 t table salt

1 Egg, Beaten

For the Filling

75 gm Softened Butter

50 gm Light Brown Sugar

2 t Cinnamon

1/2 t salt 

2t Cinnamon

100 gm Caster Sugar

The first thing to notice is that the dough is going to be very sticky. Just the milk alone gives a ~72% hydration. Then add in the egg and the butter and we are up at almost 80%. That is going to be very hard to work by hand.

Method

Bring the milk to room temperature before mixing with the rest of the bun ingredients to form a strong, stretchy dough. Place in a bowl , cover with cling film and leave to prove for an hour

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured board and roll out to a rectangle of 35x25 cm

Beat the filling ingredients together and spread over the dough.

Preheat the oven to 190C (375 F) and line a muffin tin with baking parchment. Roll the dough tightly into a 35 cm cylinder and cut into 8 pieces. Place the buns into the lined tin and leave to rise for 45 minutes.

Bake the buns in the oven for 20-25 minutes until dark golden. Remove to a cooling rack.

Mix together the cinnamon and sugar. Toss each bun into the cinnamon/sugar mixture until coated.

There are so many issues here:

1. How will mixing develop enough gluten for the buns to gold together. Rich, we doughs typically need quite a long kneading time
2. An hour may not be enough rising time
3. Which oven shelf?
4. Lining a muffin tin? Not sure what this means at all. Could be individual muffins (a pain to line) or a larger baking pan lined with parchment
5. How might one do these for breakfast?
6. Are the buns tossed in the cinnamon/sugar while still hot?

So, I revised the method - keeping the ingredients the same.

Revised Method

Bring the milk and egg to room temperature (assuming the eggs have been in the fridge). Add the egg, sugar and yeast to the milk. Whisk gently until the egg is incorporated. Leave to stand for a few minutes while the yeast starts to become active. Note the fast acting yeasts can be added directly to the flour, but I prefer to hydrate them.

1. Place the flour and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer and, use the paddle. Stirring slowly, add the milk/egg/sugar/yeast mixture until just incorporated. Switch to the dough hook and knead for about 15 minutes.
2. Cut the butter into small pieces and add them one at a time while the dough hook is kneading the dough. A further 10 or so minutes.
3. Cover the dough with cling wrap and leave in a room temperature place, undisturbed for 1 couple of hours. Then transfer the dough to the fridge. Note it is much easier to roll out cold dough.
4. Line a baking tin with parchment paper
5. Tip the dough onto a floured board and roll out as specified above. 25x35 cm (10x14 inches). Cover with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and roll it up tightly.
6. Cut the roll across wise into 8 pieces.
7. Place the pieces into the pan so they are not touching
8. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight,
9. When ready to bake, turn the oven on to 375F.
10. Remove the buns from the fridge and allow to sit uncovered on the counter while the oven hears up (at least 25 minutes)
11. Bake the nuns on the middle rack until the internal temperature reaches 202F
12. Remove, toss in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and allow to cool.  

They came out well for a first effort. Maybe a bit lighter/airier than the real thing. But definitely good enough to build on from

Cauliflower and asparagus soup

Cauliflower gets everywhere it seems. This soup wasn't an "oh let's get a cauliflower and use it to make a soup". More like an "Oh dear we have a cauliflower lying around, now what?" We also had 1/2 an onion, about 24 oz asparagus and some other bits and pieces. They all needed to be used up, so off we went. It is pretty simple, and received another, "We can serve this to people" accolade from Madame. It could be made vegan by using water or vegetable stock. We had some home made chicken stock also lying around, so used that.

Ingredients

2T vegetable oil (any vegetable oil will do)

1/2 yellow onion sliced. No need to be precise, the blender is your friend

1 medium cauliflower, florets only.

24 oz asparagus. Cut into 1" lengths. Stalks and heads separated

2 cups stock or water

Hot sauce to taste

Pickled grapes to garnish (idea stolen from Chad Houser at Cafe Momentum)

1t per portion full fat Greek yogurt to garnish

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Coarse sea salt to finish - provides a nice crunch 

Method

In a sauce pot heat 2 T oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sweat the onions until soft. No browning please. Then add the cauliflower florets, and saute until there is a little color. Add the stock, salt, pepper and hot sauce - it will not cover the florets. Bring to a simmer, cover and turn down the heat. Cook for 12 minutes - until soft. Add the asparagus stalks, cover and cook for 2 minutes. Add the asparagus tips, cover and cook for one further minute.

Blend the soup in batches until perfectly smooth. Strain through a mesh strainer and serve garnishing each bowl with some pickled grapes and Greek yogurt. Sprinkle a little coarse salt over each bowl and serve piping hot.

A tale of too much pork

If there were such a thing as too much pork, this would be it. We had done a pork shoulder on the egg for a work party. And it was pronounced delicious. The trouble is, Costco's pork shoulders come in packets of 2. Each weighing about 5lbs. So one was smoked, shredded, sauced and eaten. The other was sitting in the fridge looking at me, desperately in need of some love and attention. So what to do?

Pork tacos, of course. But sadly when getting that ready, we ended up with too much meat for the dutch oven, so had to step down to yet another dish. Fortunately there was all sorts pf stuff in the fridge - and we have a great Mexican supermarket (Fiesta) nearby.

Ingredients (Paste)

6 ancho chiles stalks removed and seeded

8 chile d'arbol - stalks removed and seeded

Juice of 4 limes

3T sugar

Method (Paste)

Cover the dried chiles with boiling water, weigh them down under a plate and leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Put all ingredients into a blender with some of the reserved liquid and blend until you have a smooth paste. It will need between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of the reserved liquid.

Ingredients (Pork Taco Meat)

3T Vegetable oil

2 Large Onions sliced

6 garlic cloves crushed

2T ground cumin
3T ground coriander
1T ground allspice
2T Mexican Oregano (dried)
3 Bay leaves
12 oz bottle of dark beer
4/5ths of the above paste

4 lbs pork shoulder - cut into 4 1lb pieces

Method (Pork Taco Meat)

Salt the pork and rub with the paste. Leave to stand for 30 minutes. Heat the oil in a large Dutch Oven until shimmering and add the onions, garlic and the spices. Soften the onions and garlic - about 5-10 minutes or until the spices are nice and fragrant. Add the beer, bring to a boil and put the pork into the pot. Cover tightly. Put into the oven for 2 1/2 hours (maybe a bit more or a bit less) until the pork is tender.

Strain the liquid and separate the fat. Shred the pork and add the strained liquid back into it. Serve immediately or allow to cool and serve over the following few days.

Ingredients (Pork Stew)

2T vegetable oil

6 Shallots - crushed

3 Garlic cloves - crushed

3 Celery ribs

1 Apple - diced

1/5th of the paste

1 lb pork shoulder - cut into 3/4 inch cubes

8 oz beer (anything but light/low calorie. We used Fireman's 4)

1/4 cup bitter orange marmalade

Method (Pork Stew)

Salt the pork and rub with the paste. Leave to stand for about 30 minutes. In a 4 quart saucepot heat the oil until sizzling. Turn heat to low and add the celery, shallot, apple and garlic. Allow the shallot and celery to soften.

Transfer the celery/shallot/garlic/apple to its own bowl. Add a little more oil and start to brown the coated pork. Do this in batches to avoid simply steaming it.

Add the seared pork to the vegetables. Deglaze the pan with the beer and add the range marmalade. Add the pork and vegetables back into the pan. Stir, put the lid onto the pan and simmer gently on the stove until the pork is tender (about 90 minutes).

When it is cooked, serve over plain white rice, garnished with Mexican Oregano.

A Pate a Choux trick

For most of us at home, using a pastry bag, nozzles, etc. is a royal pain.With that in mind, I was making some mini gougeres for a party over the weekend. Sure enough I had a bunch of gooey, cheesy choux pastry and no desire to use a bag. I could have used a pair of spoons, but that's a we bit messy too.

Instead I wrapped the choux pastry in cling wrap and chilled it. When ready to use it, I cut it into strips, and then each strip into cubes. The secret here was to use a meat slicing knife and a glass of hot water. The slicing knife has a granton edge so it is doesn't drag quite as much as my chef's knife. The hot water was to cote the knife so it didn't stick to the pastry.

I was left with 24 choux pastry cubes. I laid them on a baking sheet, allowed them to come to room temperature and then put them in a 425F oven - whose temperature I immediately dropped to 400F.

They came out just as well as they would have done had I extruded them through a pastry bag - less waste and cleanup too.

Bravetart

Bravetart, the dessert cookbook from Stella Parks has some very approachable recipes for the home cook. She explains things clearly an simply. No weird ingredients and excellent results. I have made her coconut cream pie and the no knead English muffins. Both turned out very well (although I didn't regulate the flat top temperature well enough for the muffins).

In making the coconut cream pie, I ended up with left over pastry (I was only making 1 pie), toasted sugar and left over marshmallow meringue. So what to do?

Her "No stress all butter pie-crust" is as advertised a really easy pastry. It bakes up nice and flaky - almost biscuit (English short biscuits) like. That inspired me to try the following:

Ingredients - Biscuits

1/2 Bravetart Pie dough recipe, rolled into an 5x7 incch rectangle.

3 oz thin crystallized ginger pieces

Granulated sugar (or better still toasted sugar) to top

Method

Preheat the oven to 375F. Shingle the crystallized ginger onto the rolled out pastry rectangle. Arrange the shingle parallel with the short side, and only cover 1/2 of the dough.

Fold the uncovered dough over the ginger covered half, and press the edges to seal. Using a pizza wheel cut the packet into strips. Lay the strips onto a silicone or parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with the sugar.

Bake in the 375 oven for 30 - 40 minutes, until the bars are browned and cooked through.  

Marshmallow Meringue Macaroons

The coconut cream pie recipe calls for 8 egg yolks. That means we have 8 egg whites. Making  the marshmallow meringue is essentially a Swiss meringue technique, but  with the egg/sugar mixture heated to 175F before whisking.

Preheat the oven to 375F. If you have just made the pie or the biscuits, the oven will be at 375.

Once the meringue is made, and spread onto the pie, combine the left over meringue with about 6 oz sweetened shredded coconut. Form into small mounds on a baking sheet.  

Place the baking sheet onto a rack in the middle of the oven. After 15 minutes, turn the oven heat off, but leave the fan running.  After a further 10 minutes, turn the macaroons over to dry out their flat edges and leave in the cooling oven for a further 30 minutes.

Cast Iron isn't a good conductor

For all of the great benefits of cast iron for skillets, flat tops, etc. One thing that I overlook is that it doesn't actually conduct heat very well. It has great thermal capacity, but it needs careful treatment if you want even cooking temperatures.

This thought came about when I was making the excellent English Muffin's from Stella Parks' book "Bravetart".  The muffins had all the flavor, but weren't as puffy as I wanted. So I pinged Ms. Parks on twitter. She opined that the griddle was too hot, so the outsides set up before the middle could rise properly. Her recipe was quite specific - heat to 350F. If I had an electric griddle with a temperature control and a thermostat, it would have been easy. But I don't. So I had to guess using my cast iron flat top.

After that less than satisfactory outcome, it was clearly time for a gadget - in this case a surface temperature thermometer. I didn't want to go the full Alton Brown, but I did want to do a little experimentation. Off to AceMart (my local commercial kitchen supply store) where I found this jewel for $39.

Quite a revelation. I turned the burners to medium and started heating the flat top. First mistake! I had them too high. After 5 minutes the surface over the burners was about 375 and the middle was 280.

Turned burners down to their lowest setting. Waited another 10 minutes. Now the ends where the burners are was 410 and the middle was 375. Everithing far too hot for what I needed/wanted.

Moral of the story:

• Believe the experts when they say heat your cast iron slowly
• It gets up to temperature unevenly
• It's really hard to tell when it is at the temperature you want (unless you practice a lot)
• It's still the best surface for  stove top frying

Valentine's Day - 2018

When I am home for Valentine's Day, I always try to make something a little extra special for dinner. This year was no exception, but because it is midweek and we are both working I didn't have all day to slave over the stove.
This dish was grilled romaine with roasted beets, diced red pepper, warm Israeli couscous all with a bitter orange dressing. Oh and we had some sous vide chicken thighs left over from a different dish, so added that too.
To make it vegetarian or vegan use oil instead of bacon and omit the chicken.
It did get the "We Can Serve This To People" appellation, so I guess madame liked it!

Ingredients - CousCous 

3 strips bacon cut into small pieces (for vegetarians, use olive oil instead of bacon)

1 small shallot diced finely

1/4 cup Israeli couscous

1/2t smoked paprika

1/2t sumac

1 medium carrot diced into 1/4" cubes. Size matters here for the speed of cooking

1/2 cup boiling water

Ingredients - The Dressing

4T bitter orange orange marmalade - jelly only, no peel strips

Juice of 1 lemon

1/3 cup high quality olive oil (a finishing oil)

salt to taste - remember that in this dish there is bacon that is itself salty

Ingredients - The Rest

1/2 red pepper diced into 1/4" pieces

2 medium roasted beets diced into 1/4" pieces

1 cooked chicken thigh diced (optional - we happened to have one left over)

1 romaine lettuce heart halved lengthwise

Coarse salt

Pepper

Method - CousCous

Do the couscous first as it takes the longest. 

Gently render the bacon in a large saucier. When the bacon is rendered, add the shallot, couscous and spices. Cook over medium heat, stirring or shaking frequently for about a minute - until the couscous is lightly toasted. Add the carrots and boiling water. Cover and simmer until the water is absorbed. This is about 10 minutes. When the couscous is cooked,  turn off the heat and allow to stand until ready to serve (at room temperature)

Method - Dressing

In a large bowl whisk together the ingredients, ad let stand. Whisk again immediately before use.

Method - The Rest (And Final Assembly)

Grill the romaine on a medium/hot griddle - or over a gas/charcoal grill if you prefer. When it is slightly charred, transfer to an individual plate. Place the room temperature couscous on one corener of the plate. Some of the chicken on another corner. Dress the romaine with a teaspoon of dressing. Pile the diced red pepper and beets onto the romaine. Add 2 more teaspoons of dressing. Sprinkle with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve with a nice, crisp white wine.  In our case a South African Sauvignon Blanc.

Cauliflower Soup

This soup is adapted from a recipe on Americas Test Kitchen. We made/served it for a major dinner party. This is a scaled back version, so the water may be slightly out of proportion. It can be adjusted at the end as necessary.
The beauty of this soup is that it has all the richness of a cream based soup - but with no cream. There is some butter in the recipe, but I suspect that it could be made vegan with the use of a neutral oil. I haven't tried that though.
You don't need to be very precise with the cutting, it all goes into the blender at the end, anyway.

Picture Courtesy of Jim Brewer

Ingredients

2T butter (substitute oil perhaps)

1 large leek, white and light green parts only. Sliced finely and thoroughly washed

1/2 yellow onion (NOT Vidalia or 1015) sliced thinly

1/2t kosher salt (there will be more salt later)

1 large head of cauliflower (divided use - 2/3 and 1/3)

4 cups water

Kosher salt to taste

Chipotle in adobo for garnish

Jalapeno corn bread/pepita croutons (or any other crunchy croutons)

Very coarse sea salt for crunch.

Finishing oil for drizzling

Method

Soften the leeks/onions in the butter/oil over medium low heat. Add the first salt as they begin to soften. Do not allow them to brown.

While the leeks and onions are softening, divide the cauliflower, making sure that there are no green leafy bits. Slice the stalks thinly and put them with the 2/3 side. 

When the leeks and onions have softened, add the 2/3 cauliflower and the water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes - until the cauliflower is cooked through.

Then add the remaining cauliflower to the pot and simmer for another 12 minutes (take the time from when the pot reaches simmering temp).

Transfer the contents of the pot to your blender and blend until very smooth. Note, of course that this is hot and will probably attempt to splash out of the blender, so make sure you have a towel around the blender and press the lid on tightly through the towel. If in doubt blend in batches for safety.

Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer - to remove any lumps that the blender missed.

Adjust the texture using boiling water. Adjust the seasoning, remembering that you will be adding coarse salt later.

Serve in warmed bowls with croutons and chipotle. Add a little  swirl of olive oil and the crunchy, coarse salt.

Take a bow!

We served this with a nice Chardonnay from Nickel and Nickel.

Strange Bread

I recently bought Stella Parks's wonderful dessert cook book, "BraveTart". Of course I had to try some things - so the recipe for a Japanese style bread was attempted.  It didn't turn out as intended, but it was wonderful, nonetheless.
There were several issues.

• I had a timing problem - was due to meet some friends for lunch so didn't quite give it enough time
• The recipe called for malted milk - but I didn't have any
• The coconut oil/fat that I had was very strongly coconut flavored

But apart from that, it was a matter of improvisation.

I did have some dry non fat milk lying around, so I thought it might be cool to add that instead of the malted milk powder. But, of course, I wanted some toasty flavor. So i baked it in a 350 oven for 8 minutes to get it toasted. It worked a treat!

Also, because this was from an American cook book, most of the measurements are in lbs/oz not in metric measurements.

The technique hydrates some of the flour with hot liquid first - a way to get water into the recipe without making everything too sloppy. 

Ingredients (Paste)

1 1/2 oz AP flour

6 oz 2% milk

Ingredients (Bread)

15 oz AP flour

2 oz sugar

2 oz toasted milk powder

1 1/2 oz virgin coconut oil (solid)

2t active dry yeast

5 oz 2% milk

1 oz half and half

1 1/2 t kosher salt

Method (Paste)

Mix the flour and milk together in a saucepan. Heat gently stiffing occasionally until the mixture thickens. Keep it on the heat until the flour mixture comes away from the sides of the pan (while you are stirring with a silicone spatula).

Let the paste cool for about 20 minutes

Method (Dough)

Dissolve the sugar in the milk/half and half. Add the yeast and allow to sit for 15 minutes.

Combine the flour, paste, salt, coconut oil, milk powder together in the stand mixer. Add the salt and the milk/yeast mixture, stir to combine and then knead for 15 minutes (in the mixer). It needs to be kneaded until the dough window -panes.

Cover the dough and leave to rise for about 45 minutes in a warm place. It should be a bit fuffy. 

Set the oven to 350 and preheat for 20 minutes.

Turn out the dough and shape into an 8" square. Fold the dough like you would fold a business envelope.  Pinch the edges together to make a seam. 

Place in a loaf pan, seam side down and leave to rise a second time until the top of the loaf is just above the edge of the pan.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350. Internal temp should reach around 202 degrees.

Turn the loaf out of the pan onto a wire rack. For at least an hour before cutting it.

Eat with mashed avocado - or just with butter and jam.

Delicious

Spicy Pecan Brittle

This was to be part of the dessert for a formal dinner - if it lasted that long.  Fortunately it did. It turned out a most tasty, more-ish candy with a perfect texture. Definitely will be made again. It does have a little butter so it is not vegan.

Ingredients

2t kosher salt

2t ground cinnamon

2t smoked paprika

pinch of cumin (fine ground)

pinch of cayenne (more to taste depending on heat of cayenne pepper and desire to store

2t baking soda

2 cups granulated sugar

1cup corn syrup (I used 2/3rds plain, and 1/3rd from Rockwall.)

1/2 cup water

8T (1 stick) unsalted butter

2 cups pecans (raw, roughly chopped)

1T Vanilla essence

Method

Warm a rimmed baking sheet in a 250 oven for about 30 minutes ahead of time.

Whisk together the salt, cinnamon, paprika and cayenne until well combined

In a sauce pan whisk together the sugar, water, corn syrup and vanilla and bring to the boil (medium low). and heat to 300 degrees as measured by a candy thermometer (after about 15 minutes)..

Stir and remove from heat. Add the water and stir again.Add the butter and allow to dissolve. 

Put the pan back on heat with the thermometer visible. 

Add the chopped pecans and stir thoroughly.

Pour the brittle onto the warmed baking sheet and allow to cool (about 6 hours).

Break into small pieces and garnish appropriately.

Rotkohl - Allow lots of time

This sweet/sour red cabbage dish was part of a formal dinner party that we had last Saturday. It made enough for about 16 people as a side. The proportions are not exact (sadly) because there was some improvisation needed. But here it is approximately. You can tell by the color if you have enough vinegar.  The dish needs to stay bright red looking. If it goes too dark or faintly purple, there isn't enough acid.

Ingredients

1 head red cabbage (about 4lbs, shredded)

1 1/2 yellow onions (about 1lb) sliced thinly

2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and sliced

8 cloves inside a spice bag to make them easy to find in the finished dish

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar (Ideally you would use apple cider vinegar and a bit less, but we were out!)

10 T sherry vinegar (optional n- unnecessary if using apple cider vinegar)

1/4 cup of sugar (to taste)

3 t kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot (these fit into a 7 quart dutch oven). Bring to a simmer gently. Cover and simmer for at least 90 minutes. By all means crack the lid and taste to make sure the balance is how you want it.

After 90 minutes, uncover and allow some of the liquid to evaporate (another 30 minutes). By this time the cabbage should have softened but should still be slightly firm.

Remove the spice bag and serve hot as a side dish with your main course.

Sharpening Knives

I admit it, I am a klutz - with lousy eye sight and worse eye/hand coordination. So the perennial problem that a cook has, "How to sharpen knives and keep them sharp?"

I have tried a variety of methods:
Pay someone to do it ($5.00 per blade gets expensive)
Use an electric (e.g. Chef's Choice) sharpener
Use a hand / pull through sharpener
Use a whetstone
Something else?

For various reasons, none of the methods were particularly satisfactory. The best was to have a pro (e.g. Rolling Stone in the DFW area) do it, but at $5.00 per blade the prices was getting crazy - 8 knives, 2 x year. You do the math!
Most electric sharpeners are too "greedy" for my liking - i.e. they take too much metal off the blade. The hand/pull through sharpener didn't deliver great results.
I can't manage a consistent angle on the whetstone, so I went hunting for something easy to use and that did a great job..
On the Serious Eats web page, there was an advertisement for a home belt sharpener. Belt sharpeners are what most of the pros use, so I figured there was a sporting chance that I could make one of these work. The sharpener in question is the E5 from Work Sharp .
So, on a whim I bought one.
It's very effective (at least for my western angle blades). I didn't buy the Asian guides (yet...). Also only have one grade of grit for the sanding belts. But I dare say I will experiment with different grits as well.
The knives came out incredibly sharp. The tool was foolproof (well Chris Proof which requires an even higher degree of ease). I have a carbon steel Sabatier knife which is dark gray in color. So it is easy to see how much metal the sharpener has taken off. Very little! So it meets my don't be greedy criterion.
A nice (but rather short) ceramic honing rod came with it. I alternate between that and my conventional steel. The ceramic rod does a nice job, however.
All in all I am very happy with the sharpener. Finally found one that suits me.

Full disclosure: After I had bought it and used it, I was contacted by the company for a review. For the review, the company did give me an Amazon gift card. That card will be used for more belts