somethingfoodrelated

Posts Tagged ‘recipe’

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Fondue.

In Uncategorized on February 28, 2010 at 5:15 pm

I made fondue for my wife’s birthday party last night, and it was the first time I’d made it in years.  And to be honest, the second time I’d ever used my Cuisinart fondue set.

It was a three cheese fondue recipe I’d found on the Freixenet web site; given that we had a bottle in the house, I figured I’d break out with that and make something interesting.  The downside is that despite following the directions to the letter, the fondue tasted great and was still not at the consistency I wanted.

When I think of fondue, I think of a perfectly creamy and thick cheese sauce.  A sauce that will coat a piece of bread and not be so liquid that it drips onto the tablecloth as you get it into your face.  What I had was a two-tiered pot of cheesy sparkling wine, and ultra-thick cheese with shallots.

Now what’s interesting is that where the recipe linked above says to bring the fondue to a boil near the end of the process, the Cuisinart fondue set manual says to NEVER let it boil.  When the fondue initially broke as I was preparing it in a separate sauce pan, I used an immersion blender to get it back together.  It still wasn’t the viscosity I was looking for, but it was salvageable to some extent, and I served it.

The taste was fine, and people loved it.  However, it wasn’t PERFECT, and it makes me want to attempt it again.  The downside is that fondue is pretty damn expensive to make if you want to use good cheese, and it’s not a hobby I plan on financing any time soon.

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Chicken vegetable soup – Asian style?

In recipe on February 16, 2010 at 9:21 pm

I say “Asian” mainly because I’m drawing off my limited knowledge of vegetables that feature prominently in Chinese cuisine, and also the use of curry powder and garam masala seasoning.

I roasted off a chicken while I sauteed lightly:

1 onion, cut into strips

6 scallions, diced

4 stalks of celery, diced

6 cloves of garlic, minced

Then I added one can of low sodium beef broth and one can of low sodium chicken broth.

To this, I added the following spices:

1/2 teaspoon garam masala seasoning

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon basil leaf (dry)

Then I added three quarts of water and let it cook.  While this simmered I added a package of pre-sliced mushrooms: oyster, trumpet and portobello.  Once the chicken was done, I tore it apart and added the white meat to the soup.

The final components were six carrots, diced, and one full head of bok choy cabbage.  I cut off both ends, halved the cabbage, and cut it crosswise into strips.

The end result was a lot of soup, heavy on the veggies, but well worth it.  And no salt was added!

Note: upon eating it again, I found that a little black pepper to taste was a good idea.  It almost reminds me of eastern European peasant food.  The broth is thin, since I can’t use any of the usual thickeners with my Paleo diet.  But it was still excellent, and I ate two bowls post-workout tonight.

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Paleo turkey meatballs.

In diet, recipe on February 1, 2010 at 6:03 pm

It has been challenging but fun to pursue this Paleo diet.  And part of the fun comes from concocting recipes that fulfill the Paleo requirements which ALSO aren’t boring as hell to make and eat.

So the Mrs. went out yesterday and did some grocery shopping, and brought back ground turkey.  Turkey meatballs!  Not that I couldn’t eat regular beef meatballs, but I wanted to see what I could come up with.

These are not egg-free (I had to throw an egg in for binder, that’s how it goes) but they are gluten-free.

You’ll need:

1 pound ground turkey

Minced garlic in olive oil

white pepper

black pepper

1 egg

16-20 almonds, roasted, non-salted

some white wine for cooking — doesn’t really matter what as long as YOU like it.

Start by putting your turkey in a bowl.  Add the egg, as well as 1 tablespoon of the minced garlic.  You could add more, but this worked out fine for my tastes.  Add 1 tsp white pepper and 1 tsp black pepper.

Put your almonds in a food processor and process away!  Make sure they are thoroughly ground, although a small chunk or two is not going to kill you.  Add the ground almonds to the mixture.

Mix this all together and shape golf-ball sized meatballs.  You should have roughly 14 once you’re done, give or take a meatball.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan or saute pan and CAREFULLY put the meatballs in — you should just be able to fit them all if you’re using a 10″ or 12″ pan.  These are going to be a little fragile until you sear a couple of sides, so let them brown (WATCH YOUR HEAT!) and tend to them carefully.  Now is not the time to be on the phone or watch the kids.

Once they’ve browned on the outside, pour in about a cup of white wine and put a lid on the pan.  Let this go for about five minutes and check your liquid level.  You want to have a little liquid in the pan, versus there being nothing.  If your liquid runs low, add more wine (to your discretion) and put the lid back on for another five.  If you’re already out of wine because you drank the rest, add some water.

After the ten minutes of cooking, they should be cooked through.  Take one out and check it.  These won’t take long if the test meatball isn’t ready yet — give yourself another five minutes, covered, and then you should be done.

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Pastry cream.

In recipe on January 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm

Ah, pastry cream.  You are a wily one.

I’ve made pastry cream three or four different ways in my career, and I’m sure I’ll make it more ways depending on where I work and what I’m doing.  Some are strong believers in using cornstarch for thickening; others use PCP (pastry cream powder) as a supplement to their recipe.  I don’t have too much of a preference myself, although I suppose I’d stay away from using any cheats and just make it as old-fashioned as possible.

Pastry cream is such a cool component in that you can do a million things with it.  Fruit tarts?  Get some small tart shells, fruit, and pastry cream.  A layer to break up a boring cake.  A sweet addition to a trifle.  Hell, put it in a donut.

I found a small notebook from when I lived in New York City (I’ve got like three of these) that had a few recipes in it, and found this basic recipe for pastry cream.  You’ll need to have a scale, as I did not do this by volume.

You’ll need:

12 egg yolks

1 liter of milk

250g of sugar

150 g of flour

2 vanilla beans (or vanilla extract will do – get the kind with seeds in it if you can)

50 g of somewhat softened butter (NOT MELTED IN THE MICROWAVE.)

Whisk your yolks together with the vanilla extract (or scrape the two vanilla beans into the yolks and whisk).  Add the flour GRADUALLY to your yolks and whisk.  Add the milk to this concoction and whisk.  Then get a chinois or fine strainer and strain into a pot/saucepan/whatever you like to call it.

Heat this mixture up, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken.  I would not recommend doing it on high heat, as you’ve got a better chance of burning it to the bottom of the pot.  Burnt pastry cream is a downer.

When the mixture starts to thicken and you can see it’s getting to “pastry cream status,” go just a hair longer with the heating and pull it off the stove.

Put this mixture into your KitchenAid/Cuisinart/whatever with the paddle attachment, and beat in the butter.  Start slow and work the speed up so you do not wear the pastry cream.

If you like, you can add some coffee in very small amounts to change the flavor, or a little more vanilla, or maybe a hint of chocolate syrup.  Don’t go overboard unless you’re really trying to mask the initial vanilla flavor with something else.

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Peanut butter sauce.

In recipe, technique on January 11, 2010 at 3:36 pm

I’ve held a variety of positions over the years that I’ve cooked, and it’s always great to work in pastry.  I love making desserts.  I don’t eat them that often (although it looks like I do on occasion), but I do love putting them together.  I know people will base what they order on dessert (“Well, I’m not going to eat too much, since I want to save room for dessert…”) — so it better be good.

Currently, we’re serving a dessert that uses a peanut butter sauce as a garnish — just a smear across the plate with a spoon of sauce.  This recipe works beautifully and you could put it on a sundae just as soon as you could garnish a plate with it.

Combine these ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup light corn syrup

in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Boil for one minute — that’s all you need.  Then let the mixture cool until it’s comfortable to touch.  You then add one cup of creamy peanut butter and whip it all together.

You can keep it in the fridge, and when you want to use it, microwave it on a low setting and in very small increments (~10 seconds) until it’s at the consistency you want.  Do NOT throw it in the microwave for two minutes on high.  I’d hate to clean that up.

In case you don’t know what I’m referring to about the smear, it’s pretty simple.  Take a standard tablespoon (not a measuring spoon, but an actual SPOON spoon) and get yourself a good sized dollop of the sauce.  Tap it onto the plate you’re using, off to one side (maybe “nine o’ clock” on the plate?) and with the underside (curved) part of the spoon, smear it across the plate to the “three o’ clock” side.  You might have to practice it a couple of times, but you’ll get the general idea.  Plate your cake/pie/tart on top of that, and it’ll make what you’re doing look a tad more interesting.

It really works best with white plates.  We grew up with these very dark, off-green plates which would have made peanut butter sauce look…let’s just say it wouldn’t have had the same effect.

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Bigos.

In recipe on January 6, 2010 at 12:18 am

Bigos is a Polish dish that I’ve been fortunate enough to eat more than a few times.  It’s comprised mainly of sauerkraut, with lots of different meat in it.  It’s sort of a stew, but I’ve had it where it’s more of a big pile of food.  I’ll take it either way.

I was going through some cookbooks and found a recipe that was in the New York Times back in 2008.  It’s still available online, so have at it.