Monkeyshines in the Kitchen

The Daring Cooks Flip for Patties

2012-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Daring Cooks challenge this month was a nice open-ended one: to make patties, rissoles, rosti, croquettes or fritters – essentially ingredients mixed and bound and cooked. Since we are apparently incapable of following a challenge recipe, having this open ended approach at least makes us feel less guilty.

First, a little history. Irish chef Patrick "Patty" Seedhouse is said to have come up with the original concept and term as we know it today with his first production of burgers utilizing steamed meat pattys - the pattys were "packed and patted down" (and called pattys for short) in order to shape a flattened disc that would enflame with juices once steamed.

We’d just made our chard cakes the week before the challenge. So they don’t quite qualify, but they were so pretty and delicious that we’re adding them anyway.

Next up, we made “pork-n-zola” – pork and gorgonzola, that is, our name for a pork and stilton burger that I once had in London’s borough market. Heaven on a bun. It’s quite simple if you have a meat grinder: simply grind 12 oz of moderately fatty pork with about 3 oz of strong blue cheese. This time we actually did use gorgonzola, but any blue cheese will do.

form into patties and broil or pan fry. I think that they’re best served with a bit of thyme and salt, so this time we made buns crusted with za’atar to bring those flavors into the bread.

Delicious!

We then decided to make crab cakes to celebrate the rather late opening of the north coast crab season.

My recipe for crab cakes is:

1 dungeness crab, picked – about 9 oz of meat in the end
1 shallot
1/2 red bell pepper
1 tsp dry mustard
1 Tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
panko to roll the cakes in

Gently saute the sallot to soften it without browning. Let cool. Roast the red pepper, then peel and finely chop.

While these vegetables cool, pick the crabmeat out of the shells. Mix all the ingredients except for the panko in a bowl.

Wet your hands, then form about 1/4 cup of the crab mix into a patty. Roll it in panko to crust it, then set aside on a plate while you make the rest.

Heat 1-2 Tbsp oil in a skillet, then fry the crab cakes until browned on both sides. This usually takes a couple of batches, as you don’t want to crowd the cakes in the pan.

There are so many delicious variations on patties – there were hundreds of things we’d have liked to make, particularly when inspired by the other Daring Cooks. Thanks Audax and Lis for another fun challenge.

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

Home-cured Corned Beef

2012-02-12T12:50:00.001-08:00

Years ago, when we first met, I’d announced to the Monkey that we were having corned beef for dinner. He’s pretty much an omnivore, but at the sound of that, he turned quite pale and sad. It turns out that where he grew up, corned beef is typically nasty stuff from a can. Little did he suspect that anything else, let alone a home-cured beef was possible.

Fortunately, it is. And it was a revelation to him. Even more fortunately, it’s completely easy to make. Given that, why on earth would someone choose meat from a can? And why reserve corned beef for St. Patrick’s day only? Life’s little mysteries..

Corned beef

1 beef brisket (about 4 lbs)
1 oz pickling spice – each brand has a different spice mix. I look for one with a few red chiles in it to give it a slight kick
2-3 Tbsp kosher salt
1 week

Coat the beef evenly with teh pickling spice, then salt thoroughly.

Place the beef in a large ziplock bag or in a glass baking dish and cover tightly. Refrigerate at least 5 days so that the flavors infuse.

To cook, rinse off most of the spice, so that it’s not too crunchy or salty. Pat dry with a paper towel. Cover and bake at 325 degrees F for about 2 hours or until fully cooked. You can optionally glaze the beef with mustard or with red currant jelly, baking uncovered a bit so that the glaze, well, glazes.

Home-cured beef is just a tad drier than the kind you buy at the grocery, as it isn’t pumped through with saline. You can see below that it is still plenty juicy. However, you might want to serve with some sort of sauce – my fave is horseradish and sour cream, but let your taste guide you on that.

I <3 Ottolenghi

2012-01-26T19:02:00.001-08:00

It’s rare that a cookbook captures my attention like this one does. In fact, I stalked it for quite a while before committing to allowing another cookbook into the house. But ohhh… what a book. I’m talking about Plenty, a vegetarian cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi. I’d hoped to add some new vegetarian dishes to our repertoire and have been delighted with our success so far. The photos in the book are so luscious, I really want to make everything. Well, everything that doesn’t feature eggs. And most everything we’ve made has lived up to our (very very high) expectations.

We’ve made four dishes so far:

Quinoa pilaf wither Persian Lime

This pilaf is a mix of quinoa, brown rice (our sub for the white rice in the recipe), wild rice, feta and yams. I feared that it would be a serious hassle to put together, but it wasn’t. Most importantly, it was phenomenal. We both went back for seconds. Unbelievably good.

Chard cakes with Sorrel Sauce Lemon and Yogurt

Our second foray into the book was to make chard cakes, as the Swiss chard at the market is irresistible this time of year. The recipe includes a sorrel sauce, but we couldn’t find that so substituted lemon and yogurt. And we subbed pepitas (pumpkin seeds) for the pine nuts. Again, fantastic! Sadly, there were no leftovers. This was good enough for company. But we won’t wait for company to make this again either.

Yogurt Flatbreads with Mushrooms and Barley

This again was delicious, though I would tweak it a bit next time. The flatbreads are not yeasted, so I was concerned that they’d be pretty doughy. The recipe indicated that you should roll out the flatbreads to 1” thick. I knew that couldn’t be right, but did not know how think they should be. I guessed at 1/4” thick. They puffed up a startling amount during cooking, and I wish I’d rolled to 1/8” thick. But it was still quite good. The picture showed less barley than what we had when making it. Not a complaint, just an observation. We haven’t had barley in who knows how long, so it was great to get reacquainted with an old friend.

Our fourth attempt was honestly a bit ‘meh’ for me. Saffron fettucine with spiced butter. Nothing wrong with it, but I am not a huge fan of saffron anyhow and the spiced butter had the cinnamony-moroccany thing going which is also not a fave. I love moroccan food but not when the sweet spices get invited to the party. I am sure it is me, not the recipe. No pics because we don’t celebrate what we don’t love.

On the stove now is a ribollita from the book and planned into next week’s menu is the broccoli and gorgonzola pie.

So, yes, I <3 <3 <3 this book. It’s making me eat better food from a health perspective (loads of whole grains and vegetables) and from a taste perspective. I really like his approach to cooking and his sense of playfulness with the food. If I never made any other recipes than the ones above, I’d feel I got my money’s worth from it. Instead, I just can’t wait for the next taste – in fact the monkey is now insisting that we have one or two meat dishes on the menu each week, where it used to be the other way around. How cool is that?

Hot Tamales

2012-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge was to make tamales! Yum! It was a perfect challenge for the season, as tamales are a customary Christmas dish in many households and are a perfect thing to make with a group.

We’ve made tamales before, once using masa flour to make the dough. Those were so dry, they were virtually inedible and unenjoyable to say the least. Since then, we’ve turned to prepared masa dough, which you can buy in many Mexican markets. However, inspired by the challenge, we decided to try again on making our own masa dough. Whew! success this time. And a good thing, as we have the rest of a 2 kilo sack of masa leftover..

For fillings, we chose to make green chiles and cheese and also chile colorado with pork. We wrapped the green chile tamales in banana leaves and the chile colorado tamales in traditional corn husks so that we could tell them apart. The recipes that Maranda provided also looked excellent, but we were stuck on making a couple of our old favorites.

Making tamales is a bit time consuming. Perhaps it gets easier with practice, but the process took the better part of an afternoon. This is why a group is good: you get to share the load and chat away the hours. On the upside, you get a lot of leftovers that are perfect for lunch later in the week. Tamales also freeze well, so its always best to make a whole lot of them.

The process is quite simple, really:

Soak the corn husks
Make the filling
Make the dough
Assemble the tamales
Steam
Enjoy!

1. Soak the husks

If you’re using traditional corn husks, soak them in water for at least four hours. They start out quite water resistant, but eventually soak up a huge amount.

If you use banana leaves, they don’t need soaking – just be sure to give them a good rinse. Tear off sheets that are approx. 6-8 inches wide.

Both these wrappings impart a subtle flavor to the finished tamale. I find banana leaves a little easier to work with, but really like tamales with both these wrappers. You can find corn husks at most Latin American markets. Some will also carry banana leaves. The latter can also be found frozen or fresh at many Asian markets.

2. Make the filling

Whatever filling you make, it should be a bit wetter than you think is right. The first time we made tamales, our fillings were too dry – we made them the consistency of what you might eat plain. the filling shouldn’t be runny, but very very stewy.

For the pork:

We coated 1 1/4 pounds of pork shoulder with ground cumin, ground coriander, black pepper and salt, then roasted it along with a couple of diced dried chiles at 300 degrees F for about an hour and a half. The meat was fall-apart tender, then we cooled and shredded it.

We then toasted a couple more dried chiles in a skillet, then popped them into a blender with about a cup of water and pureed until smooth. You want the sauce to be fairly runny – it will thicken as it stands. Mix the sauce into the shredded pork and you’re ready to go.

For the green chile:

Roast a half dozen or so large poblano peppers (aka pasilla peppers) and about a dozen peeled and washed tomatillos separately until the skin blackens. Peel the skin off the peppers and then roughly chop and set in a bowl.

Blend the tomatillos with a good handful of fresh cilantro. It doesn’t need to be thoroughly pureed – we blend until the cilantro looks fairly evenly chopped. Add to the chiles.

Grate about 1/3 pound cheese. We used Queso Oaxaca, which is pretty much like a mozzarella – choose something that will melt nicely.

Add the cheese to the bowl with the chiles and tomatillos, mix and season to taste.

3. Make the masa dough

If you can buy masa preparada at a nearby store, go for it. Otherwise, pick up instant masa flour for tamales and follow the directions on the bag. We noticed that there were several masa options at the store: some were specific for tortillas, some were generic for anything, and one was designated for tamales. I think we used the ‘good for everything’ kind the first time. I also think we skimped on the shortening. Not a recipe for success in our case.

4. Assembling the tamales

Whichever husk you’re using, tear off small strips of a small or broken section so that you have ties to use to seal up your tamales. I like to roll the tamales as if I am wrapping glassware and the husk is the tissue paper; roll the tamale until it’s complete, then fold the top and bottom of the husk inwards and keep rolling. Of course, I only remember this after I’ve made a couple of dozen in various ways trying to remember what works best for me. Naturally, my preferred approach is not what we filmed, but the video is probably easier to understand than the description below.

Lay out the husk with the narrow end away from you. The banana leaf should be positioned with the ‘veins’ pointed vertically. Spread masa in about a 4 inch square right up against the right or left edge of the sheet, leaving a 1 or 2 inch edge on the other side to wrap. The masa should be about 1/8 inch thick. If your husk is too narrow, you can overlap two to make a large one or save the small one for the strips mentioned above.

Spoon maybe 2 Tbsp of filling in a column down the center of your masa square. Starting from the filled side, roll the tamale to encase the filling in your masa. Then fold down the uncoated tops of your sheet and continue rolling. Tie in the center to hold the parcel together.

5. Steam the tamales

Place a steamer insert in a large stockpot. Fill with water to just the level of the steamer. Place your tamales in the pot as you finish them – if you stand them up vertically, you can usually squeeze a few more into the pot than laying them flat. Steam on medium-high heat for 40 minutes. Check halfway through to make sure you still have enough water in the pot – you definitely don’t want to go dry on this.

6. Enjoy!

We served our tamales with a cabbage, avocado and pepita slaw. And of course, a couple of cervezas.

They were also great for lunch the next day:reheat tamales in the microwave for about 2 minutes.

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:26:00.001-08:00

We welcomed in 2012 in our customary manner – by preparing a nice meal and ringing in the New Year on East coast time. Since we live in San Francisco, this meant that we could be in the arms of Morpheus by 10pm. Party monkeys we are not.

After several large meals over the holiday period we wanted to make something lighter, and crab salad leapt to mind. Our recipe was based on Thomas Keller’s crab salad from Bouchon – crab meat with a mixture of fresh herbs (we used parsley and tarragon), some crème fraiche and a little lemon juice/zest:

You’ll notice that the crab is sitting on a pale yellow hockey puck, which is actually cauliflower panna cotta. I’m pleased to report that it had neither the consistency nor the flavor of a hockey puck, and was a light though luxurious counterpoint to the crab topping. Here is the Monkeyshines recipe:

8oz cauliflower
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 eggs
salt and white pepper

Chop the cauliflower into large florets and roast at 375°F, loosely covered in foil, for about 30 minutes until soft, then puree together with the cream and eggs with a handheld blender until smooth. Press through a sieve to make sure that it’s creamy with no lumps, then spoon into buttered ramekin dishes. Bake in a water batch at 350°F for 40 minutes until set, then remove from the oven and cool. Watch nervously as you invert the ramekins over your serving platter and hopefully remove in one piece!
We made two other salads to accompany our dinner: cucumber/pasilla pepper, and carrot/chick pea:

For the carrot and chickpea salad, we went back to Bouchon cookbook. To be honest, the chickpeas were a bit more fussy than we normally make (involving cooking them in stock with various vegetables and a bouquet garni – I’m not convinced they were that much better than boiling in water). However, lightly cooking the julienned carrots in a skillet with a sprig of thyme, bayleaf and clove of garlic imparted wonderful flavors to the whole salad.

The cucumber salad was based on a recipe that we’ve made previously during one of the Daring Cooks challenges that we did a year ago (Poaching with the Daring Cooks.) The original recipe apparently came from the Top Chefs cooking show, although we simplified it somewhat, to no detriment in our estimation. The mixture of cucumbers, pasilla peppers, lime zest and spice-infused oil seems a bit weird until you taste it – it all comes together wonderfully.
Finally, the orange pools that you can see in the photos above are orange vinaigrette – also Thomas Keller-inspired. I think it was nice, but perhaps not essential to the overall dish. Besides, I think the texture and plating of this element need some work: somehow it doesn’t look like the artful swooshes that adorn restaurant dishes.

All in all, a fine way to bid farewell to 2011, all washed down with a bottle of Acacia 1995 brut sparkling wine. Onwards to 2012, and a Happy New Year to our readers – both of you !

Char Siu and Char Siu Bao

2011-12-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

The Daring Cooks returned to China this month to make BBQ pork and then transform that luscious pork into steamed or baked pork buns.

The challenge was hosted by Sara from Belly Rumbles. She provided several recipes: one for the BBQ pork like you see in most shops with a bit of red food coloring and having maltose and another without those ingredients. She also shared a dough recipe for baked buns and another for the steamed. Read all those recipes plus plenty of detail on the making of the dishes on the DC site.

We opted for the recipe without the food coloring in order to avoid buying things that we’d probably never use again. It really was fantastic and simple. The hardest part of this challenge was not eating all the pork before getting the buns together.

Char Siu (Cantonese BBQ Pork)

Ingredients
1 teaspoon (6 gm) salt
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon (3 gm) ground white pepper
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons (30 gm/1 oz) sugar
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon shaoxing cooking wine
1 teaspoon (3 gm) five spice
(1 tablespoon=15 ml, 1 teaspoon=5 ml)

Directions:

Trim the pork loin to remove fat and tendon and slice lengthways so you have two long pieces, then cut in half. Place in container that you will be marinating them in.
Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine.
Cover pork well with ⅔ of the marinade mixture. Marinate for a minimum of 4 hours, I find it is best left to marinate overnight. Place the reserved ⅓ portion of the marinade covered in the fridge. You will use this as a baste when cooking the pork. Haha – we didn’t read this, just marinated it in the whole lot. we then boiled down the leftover marinade once the pork was removed and used it in our buns.
Pre-heat oven to moderate 180˚C/350°F/gas mark 4.
Place pork in a hot frying pan or wok. Sear it quickly so it is well browned.
Place on a wire rack over a baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.

For the pork buns, I used a recipe that I’d used successfully before. It looks quite similar to the challenge recipe, though I didn’t really stop and compare line by line. I also baked half the buns and steamed the other half, using the same dough for the whole lot. I’d never had a baked pork bun before (am quite addicted to the steamed variety) and enjoyed both tremendously. The real advantage to making your own is that you know what’s gone in to the mix and there are no big disgusting fatty or gristly bits lurking inside.

The recipe for the dough is from The Cooking of Joy and is quite excellent. I have used both rice flour and all-purpose flour for the buns. I do prefer the more delicate taste of the rice flour, though the AP version is fine.

Char Siu Bao

makes 16 buns

For the dough:
1/2 packet yeast (a little more than 1 teaspoon)
3 cups flour
1 cup milk, warmed
3/8 cups sugar
1/4 cups vegetable oil

For the filling:
1 lb. char siu pork, either homemade or from a store, diced
2 tablespoons char siu sauce

For baked buns:
egg wash or milk to glaze
sesame seeds (optional)

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Mix in the rest of the ingredients for the dough and knead. Cover with a moist cloth or seal tightly and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour.
Toss the diced pork with the char siu sauce, adding a teaspoon or two of warm water if necessary.
Divide the dough into 16 equal parts. Take one piece, roll it into a ball, and flatten with your hands. Stretch the circle out so that it is about the size of your palm. (You could use a rolling pin to do this, but there's no need.)
Add about 1 tablespoon of filling to the middle of the dough. Cup your hand so that the dough comes up around the filling. Using the hand not holding the dough, pinch a bit of the edge, pull it up and away from you. Then grab another piece further away from you and continue around the dough, rotating as you go. Once you have gone all the way around, twist what you have left between your fingers and seal.
Place the bun sealed side down on a square of parchment paper. Proof for 20-30 minutes.
Add water to your steamer and heat on high. Once the water is boiling, place the buns in your steamer and steam for 13-15 minutes.
For the baked buns, brush the tops with glaze. Optionally roll the buns in sesame seeds to coat.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 min or until golden brown.

Tea-ing up with the Daring Cooks

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

We occasionally make a tea-smoked duck that we just love. However, we decided to try something new to us and made a roast chicken breast that had been brined in tea.

In a word, Holy Cow. It was go-o-o-d. The monkey kept saying that this was one of the best chicken dishes he’s had. I’ll take that as a compliment.

The chicken had a delicate tea flavor – you could tell it was there, but it wasn’t overpowering. And it was perfectly juicy. The great thing is that it was very simple – the only hitch being that with anything brined you have to plan a couple of hours in advance.

Of course I didn’t exactly measure the ingredients, but here’s how it went down - please adjust to suit your taste:

Tea-Brined Chicken

1 chicken breast, bone-in

approx. 6 cups boiling water
2 tea bags – we used smoked Osmanthus, which is much milder than a lapsang souchong. Any black tea would do, really. So would an herbal tea, though that would result in a totally different dish..
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 small bay leaf

In a large non-reactive bowl, steep the tea in the boiling water for about 5 minutes. Add the salt, pepper and herbs and let it cool to room temperature. Taste the brine – it should be just slightly salty, not overpoweringly so, or you’ll end up with unpleasantly salty chicken.

Add the chicken, cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 12 hours.

Remove from the refrigerator so the meat has a chance to warm a bit while the oven heats.

Heat the oven to 425 F.

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat it dry. Place the chicken on a rack and roast until the meat registers 150 F. This will take about half an hour. Cover and let rest at least 5 minutes before slicing to serve.

here’s an interior shot of that precious, juicy bird. There aren’t any more photos as we were busy tucking in!

Thank you Sarah for introducing us to the idea of cooking with tea. We’ll most definitely do it again – and I am still planning to make lentils cooked in tea, as soon as time permits. For that recipe and many other wonderful tea dishes, check out what the other daring cooks created this month.

Best. Duck. Ever.

2011-10-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

So guess what we had for dinner last night…..

We’d long talked about whether it was possible to grill a duck, but shied away fearing that all the fat would cause massive flare ups, burnt skin and much sadness.

Our fears were completely unfounded. Cooked over a low heat (about 20 or so coals on either side of the bird), we had the most amazingly flavorful, non-fatty, crispy skinned duck ever. Even better, this technique means that the house wasn’t smoky and the oven didn’t need cleaning afterward.

Here’s the scoop – note: you want to start this about 5 hours (or more) before serving.

Rotisserie Duck

1 duck (about 4-5 pounds)
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp fresh rosemary
2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
1 tsp salt

Mince the garlic and rosemary. Crush the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle if you have one, or otherwise bash them up as much as you can. Mix the herbs, fennel and salt, then rub inside and outside the duck – it will coat the bird fairly thinly. (I tried to rub the herbs under the skin, like I do with roast chicken, but couldn’t manage to separate the skin from the meat in any reasonable way – therefore settled for some on the inside as well as outside).

Let the duck marinate in the rub for at least 2 hours, preferably more.

Light about 40-50 coals in your grill, then when they’re hot, separate to piles on each side of the grill, parallel to the way your rotisserie runs. Place a drip pan in the center (this is required in order to avoid sadness and also gives you the opportunity to make awesome roasted potatoes in duckfat a little later on).

Impale your duck on the rotisserie and cook. Cooking time will be 2 1/2 hours total. Check the duck periodically – you might want to drain some of the fat out of the drip pan. About halfway through, prick the skin all over so that the fat runs out even more readily (it’s easier after the skin’s crisped up a bit). Add more coals at this point too.

Keep cooking, siphoning off the surplus fat until the meat is tender and the skin’s lacquered, about 2 1/2 hours total.

If you want to take this over the top, after 1 1/2 hours, drain the drip pan so that there’s only a minimal amount of fat in it. Toss in a handful of quartered yukon gold potatoes. Then keep cooking as above.

no more pictures, because we were too busy eating!

A Chinese Feast

2011-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

Because we live in San Francisco where excellent Chinese food abounds, we rarely cook it at home. But Moo Shu has long been one of Mrs. Monkeyshines’ favorites, so we were happy to give it a go. The primary recipes were culled from the Book Chinese Cookery by Deh-Ta Hsiung. Astoundingly, we have a copy of the same book: the Monkey picked it up on a remainders table while living in London over 20 years ago. It was one of the few possessions he had with him when he moved to California.

We do occasionally dip into the book for inspiration, though we also have a standing joke about it as nearly every recipe calls for the same 4-5 central ingredients, one being Shao Hsing Rice Wine. To celebrate the Daring Cooks’ challenge, we bought a bottle of Shao Hsing Rice Wine of our very own.

We planned a Chinese feast using selections from the cookbook as well as a couple of other sources. Our meal included:

Mu shu pork + pancakes
Steamed beef
Steamed eggplant
Daikon cakes
home made hoisin sauce

The mu shu pork was pretty good – we used frozen bamboo shoots and fresh tree ear mushrooms, so the flavors were more vibrant than you sometimes get in a restaurant. Still, I’ll probably continue to rely on local restaurants as it takes a while to make the pancakes. The bonus on this front, though is that our sister in law turns out to be an excellent pancake roller!

Moo Shu Pork:

Serves 4
Preparation time: 25-30 minutes
Cooking time: 6-8 minutes

Ingredients
2/3 cup (1 oz) (30 gm) Dried black fungus ('wood ears')
½ lb (450 gm) pork loin or butt
¾ cup (3½ oz) (100 gm) bamboo shoots, thinly cut
3 cups (6 oz) (170 gm) Chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage), thinly cut
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) salt
4 tablespoons (60 ml) vegetable oil
2 scallions
1 tablespoon (15 ml) light soy sauce
2 teaspoons (10 ml) rice wine
A few drops sesame oil
12 thin pancakes to serve

Directions:

Soak the fungus in warm water for 10-15 minutes, rinse and drain. Discard any hard stalks, then thinly shred.
Thinly cut the pork, bamboo shoots and Chinese cabbage into matchstick-sized shreds.
Lightly beat the eggs with a pinch of salt.
Heat about 1 tablespoon (15 ml) oil in a preheated wok and scramble the eggs until set, but not too hard. Remove and keep to one side.
Heat the remaining oil. Stir-fry the shredded pork for about 1 minute or until the color changes. Add the fungus, bamboo shoots, Chinese cabbage and scallions. Stir-fry for about 2-3 minutes, then add the remaining salt, soy sauce and wine. Blend well and continue stirring for another 2 minutes. Add the scrambled eggs, stirring to break them into small bits. Add the sesame oil and blend well.
To serve: place about 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of hot Moo Shu in the center of a warm pancake, rolling it into a parcel with the bottom end turned up to prevent the contents from falling out. Eat with your fingers. (See Final Preparation and Serving section below for more complete details.)

Pancakes:

Makes 24-30 pancakes
Preparation time: about 10 minutes plus 30 minutes' standing time
Cooking time: 45-50 minutes

Ingredients
4 cups (960 ml) (560 gm) (19¾ oz) all purpose flour
About 1½ cup (300ml) (10 fl oz) boiling water
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vegetable oil
Dry flour for dusting

Directions:

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Gently pour in the water, stirring as you pour, then stir in the oil. Knead the mixture into a soft but firm dough. If your dough is dry, add more water, one tablespoon at a time, to reach the right consistency. Cover with a damp towel and let stand for about 30 minutes.
Lightly dust the surface of a worktop with dry flour. Knead the dough for 6-8 minutes or until smooth, then divide into 3 equal portions. Roll out each portion into a long sausage and cut each sausage into 8-10 pieces. Keep the dough that you are not actively working with covered with a lightly damp dish cloth to keep it from drying out.
Roll each piece into a ball, then, using the palm of your hand, press each piece into a flat pancake. Dust the worktop with more dry flour. Flatten each pancake into a 6 to 8 inch (15 cm to 20 cm) circle with a rolling pin, rolling gently on both sides.
Place an un-greased frying pan over high heat. Once the pan is hot, lower the heat to low and place the pancakes, one at a time, in the pan. Remove when little light-brown spots appear on the underside. Cover with a damp cloth until ready to serve.

Hoisin Sauce:

(source: http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/13249/hoisin-sauce.html)

While most restaurants, or at least those at which I have ordered the dish, serve this with plum sauce, none of the cook books or online recipes that I have seen have referred to that as being traditional. Most that reference serving it with a sauce call for it to be served with hoisin sauce. The home-made hoisin sauce was really great too - we had some fermented black beans (bought that way, not another refrigerator reject), and all the other ingredients. It was thinner than the store-bought sauce, but quite yummy.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons (60 ml) soy sauce
2 tablespoons (30 ml) black bean paste
1 tablespoon (15 ml) honey OR molasses
2 teaspoons (10 ml) rice wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon (⅔ ml) garlic powder
2 teaspoons (10 ml) sesame seed oil
20 drops (¼ teaspoon) Sambal or other hot sauce (optional, depending on how hot you want your hoisin sauce)
1/8 teaspoon (⅔ ml) black pepper

Directions:
Simply mix all of the ingredients together by hand using a sturdy spoon or with your immersion blender.

Steamed Eggplant

this recipe is from Jamie Oliver

Our steamed eggplant was a success and, whilst perhaps not an authentic Chinese dish, it made a nice accompaniment to the moo-shu pork.

2 medium purple aubergines (we used 2 large Chinese eggplants – the long thin purple kind and made a half recipe)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons sweet chilli dipping sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
• 1 large handful of fresh coriander, roughly sliced
• 1 large handful of fresh basil, roughly sliced
• 1 large handful of fresh mint, roughly sliced
• 1 large handful of yellow celery leaves
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put some water in a pan and bring it to the boil. Slice the aubergines in half lengthways and place them in your steamer with the cut side facing up. Steam them for about 10 minutes – to check whether they're ready, simply squeeze the sides gently and if they're silky soft then they're done. Remove them from the steamer, place them in a colander and leave to cool.
Now make your dressing by mixing all the ingredients together. When the aubergines are warm this is the perfect time to flavour them. Cut them up into rough 2.5cm dice, then dress them and toss. Serve immediately as a salad, tapas dish or as a vegetable next to any simple cooked fish. Just really tasty!

As for the other components of our Chinese feast – we have to admit that they were not as successful as the Moo-shu pork. We tried a steamed beef recipe from Deh-Ta Hsiung that looked just like the picture in the book. It tasted like the pictures from the book too, and the texture was not very nice, a bit like wet cardboard. But drowned in home-made hoisin sauce, was acceptable.

We made daikon cakes. These were a Vietnamese recipe, so not exactly traditional, but we love them when we go out for dim sum. The recipe I’d found on the internet, though, was a disaster. Very pasty and floury. There's a good daikon cake to be made and this was not it; we're now on a mission to find a better version.

Wish we could have served her a better birthday dinner. (Happy birthday Myint!!) But to reiterate, the moo shu was good. Thanks Shelley for inspiring us to push ourselves out there a bit! We did have a great time in the kitchen this weekend and that's what counts!

Plum Cake

2011-09-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

Years ago, we made a plum cake using one of the zillion recipes we have on hand. Or maybe from one I found on online. Of course it was divine. Of course, I have no idea where the recipe is.

I tried various others, but they were never quite as good. This time I set out to make a plum cake and to simply forget about finding that recipe and just make one that I might like and that, by writing down the recipe, maybe I’d be able to recreate the next time. Given my iffy track record with cakes, this was either a worthy stretch or a really stupid idea.

Fortunately, I really do like this cake. And now I can make it again. ‘Cuz it’s written down right here. To give credit, it’s a bit of a mashup of a Cook’s Illustrated recipe with an Epicurious recipe, with my own modifications (less sugar, cardamom) thrown in for good measure. Best of all, it’s pretty fault tolerant. I know that because it initially went into the oven without my having added the milk. Which meant pulling it back out of the oven, hastily pulling off all the pretty plums, stirring in the milk, slopping only some of it all over the counter and floor, then putting the plums back on top and the whole mess back into the oven before the cake decided to go completely flat, gummy and/or revolting.

For me, a cake that can survive that and still come out well and showcase the yummy plums that are in the market right now, that’s a cake to remember and to make again.

Plum Cake

1 pound sugarplums or fresh Italian prunes
2 Tbsp red currant or black currant jelly
2 Tbsp brandy
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

Cut the prunes in half and remove the pits. Of course, you can use regular plums too – i just like the way the prunes look and fit in the pan.
In a skillet over medium-low heat, melt the jam with brandy, then add the prunes and gently stir to coat. Cook until the jam is just thickening, maybe 4 minutes, then set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9” cake pan or springform pan.
Cream the butter and sugar in a medium-sized bowl.
Add the flour, salt, baking powder, and cardamom (don’t mix it in yet, just dump it on top of the sugar/butter).
Beat the eggs in a small bowl, then whisk in the milk and vanilla and milk.
Add the liquids to the bowl with your sugar and flour and mix until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Place the plum halves skin side down on top.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cakes part (not through a plum) comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack. Top with powdered sugar if you want to get fancy with it.

A Consommé Achievement

2011-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

When we joined the Daring Cooks, our hope was that we’d be urged to make the things that we’d otherwise never dare to make. This month’s challenge, consommé, certainly rose to the occasion. We do make stock routinely, and even stock so rich, it’s jellied when cold, but had never dared to try to clarify it beyond simply straining out the bones and vegetables used to make it.

To the uninitiated, clarifying stock is an exceedingly counterintuitive exercise: just when you’ve strained your broth, you add eggs whites and ground meat to it, making your semi-clear soup dirty again. Hmm.. And for us, it meant being patient and trusting the recipe - not exactly a strong suit in the Monkeyshines household. Then presto! Suddenly those bits you threw into your soup come together in a ‘raft’ and you have gorgeously clear consommé below.

We’ll start at the top to share the process we followed, and you can also visit the Daring cooks site for complete instructions and several recipes.

When we typically make stock, we use the bones reserved from chicken breasts used in some other meal. I then roast them with the onions, carrots and celery, add water, bay leaf, salt and pepper. This time, we used chicken wings and only lightly baked them as we wanted to experiment with a supposedly proper ‘white’ chicken broth. In the future, I’ll stick to my habits as it’s a) easier b) cheaper c) honestly, I like the flavor of the roasted chicken and aromatics more.

Light Chicken Consommé

Ingredients:

2 lb chicken wings
2 stalk celery, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 large onion, diced
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 pound ground chicken
4 egg whites
1 cup crushed ice

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Roast the chicken wings until they’re just turning golden (or richly gold for a stronger chicken-y-er broth)
While the chicken is roasting, heat the oil in a large stockpot and gently cook the vegetables.
Add the chicken wings to the stockpot, then cover with water – you want the water to be about 1” above all the other ingredients. According to the challenge tips, you should always use cold water to start your soup – this way it’s less likely to get cloudy.
Add a bit of salt and pepper – less than you think you’ll want. Simmer the stock over medium-low heat until the broth tastes chicken-y. You don’t want the stock to boil – bubbles should just lazily and slowly break on top. This may take 2-6 hours depending on how low your heat is, how roasted the meat was, etc. Over time, the broth will be reducing, which is why you don’t want to over-season it at the start.
Skim off any fat or scum occasionally as the broth cooks, but don’t stir your soup or you might make it cloudy.
When you’re happy with the taste of the broth, strain it into another pan and remove the meat and veg. Some people re-use this stuff, I usually find it’s too flavorless to want to use at this point.
Clean your stockpot and return the broth to it. Return to a simmer.
Now simply disengage what you think you know about cooking and play along. This is a very important step.
Cook the ground chicken in a skillet until just cooked. Don’t brown it, but you don’t want any more draining juices. Let cool before proceeding.
Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the crushed ice (we just whacked a few ice cubes in a baggie with our meat mallet). Add the ground chicken to this.
Pour your egg white concoction into the stock and slowly stir 3 times.
Let it return to a simmer and don’t stir it any more. Remember to trust the recipe. It’s helpful to just go away for a while and read or watch TV or something.
Maybe 15 minutes later, come back and check – suddenly you’ll have a raft forming! Using your ladle or the back of a spoon, gently push a hole in the center of the raft.
Maintain the hole in your raft, and spoon off any scum or foam that rises through it. You need this hole to see that some how by magic, your broth is becoming clear.
Keep cooking until you’re satisfied with the taste and clarity of the stock. Then carefully ladle the consommé through the hole in your raft – this way you don’t get any dregs from the bottom of the pot or from the raft.
Pour it into a nice clear bowl so that you can marvel at what you just made! It’ll probably be lighter in color than what you started with, but have all the richness of flavor. Be sad since you refrigerated it overnight and you can’t get a decent picture as condensation is forming on the bowl, yet you’re too impatient to just wait.

Peta also challenged us to serve the consommé with our favorite accompaniments. For us, that meant a loaf of Country bread made from the Tartine cookbook:

and also tiny agnolotti stuffed with veal, prosciutto and cabbage:

We garnished our agnolotti en brodo with a leaf of fried sage.

Peta, thanks for a wonderful adventure! Will we actually go to the work to made consommé again? doubtful. But are we glad we gave it a try? Absolutely. Did this whole adventure persuade us that recipes are made to be followed? Umm.. maybe. Old habits do die hard.

Peta, of the blog Peta Eats, was our lovely hostess for the Daring Cook’s September 2011 challenge, “Stock to Soup to Consommé”. We were taught the meaning between the three dishes, how to make a crystal clear Consommé if we so chose to do so, and encouraged to share our own delicious soup recipes!

Savory Bacon, Potato and Cheddar Muffins

2011-09-05T09:27:00.001-07:00

On holiday this year, we were treated to some marvelous, groundbreaking, dare I say earth-shattering savory muffins. These muffins boldly went where no muffin had ever gone before. These muffins were bursting with crisp bacon and oozing cheddar. If we weren’t in in a place where I was wearing swimwear for most of the day, I’d have probably eaten the entire tray. So naturally, as soon as we were home, in the safety of swirling fog and figure-hiding sweaters, we had to try to re-create them.

The basic recipe is noted below. Certainly there will be variations over time – the addition of onions, perhaps, or spinach if it’s on hand. But I am confident we’ll return to this version just as often.

I’d meant to add a but more cheese on top (gilding the lily anyone?), but the filling was so cheesy that we decided to forego that extra step. No matter, the muffins rose exuberantly and the cheese did manage to escape just a bit, both on top and on the sides, to create it’s own individual garnish. So they aren’t elegant, but the crispy cheesy bits are, of course the best part.

Bacon, Cheddar and Potato Muffins
makes 8-10 muffins

2/3 cup bacon – about 3 thick slices
1 medium russet potato
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin tin.
Cut the bacon into small bits and cook gently until just starting to crisp. Set aside to cool.
Cut the potato into 1/4” dice, then cook in the microwave 2 minutes to par cook. If it’s easier, you could shred them and then pre-cook too or maybe use leftover mashed potatoes. Set aside to cool.
Dice the cheese into 1/4” dice
In a medium bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until they’re combined, then whisk in the milk.
Working quickly, add the eggs, milk, cheese, bacon and potato to the flour and stir until it’s all just mixed.
Spoon the mix into your muffin tin, then bake for 18 minutes or until cooked through.

Serve piping hot.

Review: My Indian Kitchen by Hari Nayak

2011-08-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the United States, the Indian food that Linda knew was what mom made with leftover Thanksgiving turkey. It was fast and easy: simply cut up the turkey legs, sauté with onions and raisins and a whole lot of curry powder and call it done. To this day, she still has an enormous aversion to the thought of curry. Even to leftover turkey. And don’t get her started on fruit with meat… Sorry mom. Dave on the other hand grew up in the United Kingdom, where good Indian food is a way of life. Much to his dismay, Linda would flinch every time he mentioned going out for Indian food (although inevitably she’d enjoy her dinner immensely.) Even so, Dave’s Indian home cooking experience was mostly restricted to Beef Curry Casserole, from a cookbook by the venerable British cook Katie Stewart. Although this is a tasty dish (which we still make from time to time), it only conveys a hint of what Indian cuisine has to offer.

We were therefore excited about the opportunity to review My Indian Kitchen: Preparing Delicious Indian Meals Without Fear or Fuss by Hari Nayak. We both were intrigued by the concept – could we actually make a decent Indian meal without fear or fuss? Perhaps Linda could overcome her aversion to the thought of curry. And perhaps we could find tasty, authentic Indian dishes to make that don’t require 45 obscure ingredients and 8 hours in the kitchen. It was certainly worth a try! Furthermore, this attractive, large format book is lavishly illustrated with beautiful pictures of both ingredients and finished dishes, inviting us to try out the recipes.
As the book illustrates, Indian food is more than just curry and there are numerous recipes here from throughout the Indian sub-continent, but with an emphasis on dishes from southern India where the author grew up. My Indian Kitchen provides a wealth of tasty recipes including vegetarian soups, grilled meats and even chai crème brulée. The introduction covers some basics of Indian cooking, including a review of some of the vegetables, herbs and spices that are frequently used and a useful section on some basic techniques. There is also a page on pairing wine with Indian food, although the complex spices and heat in many Indian dishes makes this a challenge and it seems that beer is the alcoholic beverage of choice for the author to enjoy with his cuisine. We were particularly happy to see that, although Chef Nayak provides many delicious recipes, he also encourages us to explore spice, herb and flavor combinations of our own. In a highly uncharacteristic move however, we actually stuck pretty close to the recipes, except when we noticed at the last minute that we were out of something.

The recipes are divided into 9 chapters: Indian Spice Mixes, Chutneys and Accompaniments, Appetizers, Soups and Dals, Vegetables and Cheese Dishes, Fish and Seafood, Poultry and Meat, Bread and Rice, and finally Desserts and Drinks. The first chapter, covering masalas (spice powders and pastes), is extensively cross-referenced throughout the book, as these aromatic concoctions form the heart of the flavor profile for many of the dishes.

Masalas
As we read through the book, we quickly divined that the secret to making Indian food efficiently is having your masalas ready to go in advance. With that in mind, we designated our first cooking day simply for getting ready for the rest of the week.
For our advance preparation we chose to make homestyle garam masala, mint chutney, and vindaloo paste. We decided we’d test the timings suggested by the book and they were for the most part pretty accurate. The cilantro mint chutney came together in a little over 5 minutes. The garam masala took nearly 10 rather than the 5 minutes described in the book, but we pounded it by hand rather than using an electric spice grinder.

mint chutney garam masala

We did come a bit unstuck in making the vindaloo paste. The recipe calls for soaking dried red chiles for an hour or so, then blending them with additional spices in a food processor. The wet chiles plus their soaking liquid meant that the spices merely travelled round and round our processor for 5 minutes until we gave up and pounded them out slowly by hand. We’d make the recipe again, but either using fresh red chiles or grinding the dry chiles with the spices first and then adding the liquid to soak.

right: after 5 minutes in the food processor, the spices are still whole

left: after a good bashing with the mortar and pestle

Pork Vindaloo
We’ve often ordered lamb vindaloo in restaurants, but had never even thought of making it at home. According to the book, vindaloo is originally derived from a Portugese dish known as Carne de Vinha d’ Alhos (meat with vinegar and garlic), and is a characteristic dish from Goa. Our home-made version was a bit different than what we recall from restaurant versions, but not in a bad way: it was wonderfully complex and rich.

Masala Lamb Chops
Buoyed by our success with the vindaloo, we tried the masala lamb chops a few days later. These are seasoned with the homestyle garam masala that we’d prepared in advance, as well as a few other herbs and spices. They’re optimally marinated overnight, but we’d overlooked that detail and marinated them for maybe 2 hours. Nonetheless, they were delicious and super quick to prepare. We served them with Basmati Rice with whole spices. This was delicately flavored and the method of cooking the rice was a great success - every grain came out fluffy and separate.

Paneer and Spinach Samosas
We were getting quite cocky when we decide d to try our hand at making samosas with home-made paneer. Making the paneer was a blast. It came together as if by magic and took quite a lot less time and fuss than we’d expected. On the other hand, making the samosa dough was honestly a bit of a challenge – we had to add quite a bit more water than the recipe called for to get the dough to be even remotely pliable, then it still took significant brute strength (and our pasta roller + rolling pin) to roll it out. However, once it was all done, these were some of the best samosas we’ve ever had. The difficult dough turned perfectly crisp and almost sandy after shallow frying and the finished product wasn’t greasy at all. We’ll certainly make them again using this recipe. Not often, but occasionally, as they were a treat and we still have the lamb filling and the traditional potato and peas filling that we want to try.

Northern Chickpea Curry (Chana Masala)
Chana masala is another favorite – this chickpea stew is the definition of comfort food on a cool day. Ours turned out quite fiery as we used fresh red chiles instead of dried and also our green chiles were quite spicy. It also used a bit of our homestyle garam masala. This dish could easily be made as hot or mild as you like and, like everything we tried from the book was quite delicious.

Stir Fried Okra (Bhindi Subzi)
We’re huge fans of okra, but had never succeeded in cooking it on the stove without it getting slimy. Until now. According to this book, the trick is in making sure that you completely dry off the okra after washing. Whatever it took, this was delicious; the fried onions and delicate spices were a perfect foil to the earthy notes of the okra. Again, it went together quickly and we’ll definitely make this dish again and again – it’s much easier than firing up the barbeque which had, ‘til now, been our go-to method for making okra.

Smoky Fire-Roasted Eggplant (Baingan Bharta)
We’ve saved the best for last. This eggplant was out of this world. We made quite a lot of it as an accompaniment to the Masala Lamb Chops, and are only a bit embarrassed to admit that we ate it all. Every single bite. It could have made a lovely lunch, but it tasted so good that we just couldn’t stop.

So, does the book achieve its aim to create delicious meals without fear or fuss? It does. For the most part, the ingredients were easy to acquire, and in a few cases where something more unusual was included, Chef Nayak offered tips on the flavor profile so that we could work out an appropriate substitution. Nothing that we tried was technically daunting, and armed in advance with just a few spice mixes (masalas) we made a number of delicious Indian meals, even midweek. These masalas, toasted and ground from whole spices, are key to achieving the depth of flavor that defines good Indian food. It does pay to prepare in advance, however, and some of the recipes may take quite a long time if you have to stop to make each spice powder and paste along the way. But we honestly don’t think you could cut things much shorter and still make something that tastes quite as good.
Chef Nayak provided clear, simple directions and whenever we had a question, we always found the answer within his book. We really liked his style: he is informative about the background of each dish and offers suggestions on complementary dishes for each recipe. His voice is calming and confident, not loud or gimmicky as has lately become common with a lot of food writers. We scarcely dipped into the recipes that are offered in My Indian Kitchen and we’re looking forward to trying many more. That is, if we can tear ourselves away from that smoky eggplant…
This review was originally published on the Daring Kitchen Cookbook Review.

Appam my soul! More tasty Indian food!

2011-08-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Or, the challenge in which we actually follow the recipes for a change.

We’ve been on quite an Indian food kick lately, so we were excited to try making Appam for this month’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge. We had previously ventured into this region’s cuisine when we made Dosas in one of our first Daring challenges, way back in September 2009. Appams, also known as hoppers, are quite a different beast: a fermented rice-based batter that is made into a thin, lacy crepe and served with curry. Our gracious host Mary also provided several delicious recipes for curry and accompaniments, which we were also enthusiastic to try. Thanks Mary, for a different and delicious challenge!

Whilst we loved the flavor of the appam, we think we still need a bit of practice, since our renditions weren’t particularly pretty, We did manage to get them to be a little crispy around the edges, which provided a nice contrast to the softer interior – however they were never perfectly round and one bit always seemed to stick to the pan. Nevertheless, it’s the taste that counts and they were very tasty indeed. Here is our first rendition of the challenge recipe:

Appam
Servings: Makes about 15

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups (360 ml/300 gm/10½ oz) raw rice
1 ½ teaspoons (7½ ml/5 gm) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons (10 ml/9 gm) sugar
½ cup (120 ml) of coconut water or water, room temperature
1 ½ tablespoons (22½ ml/18 gm) cooked rice
½ teaspoon (2½ ml/3 gm) salt
about ½ cup (120 ml) thick coconut milk (from the top of an unshaken can)

Directions:

1. Soak the raw rice in 4 to 5 cups of water for 3 hours.
2. Dissolve the sugar in the coconut water or plain water and add the yeast. Set aside in a warm area for 10-15 minutes, until very frothy.
3. Drain the rice and grind it in a blender with the yeast mixture to make a smooth batter. You can add a bit of extra water if needed, but I did not. Add the cooked rice, and grind/blend to combine well. You can see that it is not completely smooth, but very thick—that’s about right.
4. Pour into a large bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for 8-12 hours. You not only want the mixture to rise and collapse, but to ferment. When it is ready, it will have a slightly sour and distinctly yeasty smell. Don’t worry--they are mild tasting when cooked!

The batter:
definitely
fermenting!

5. Add the coconut milk and salt, and a bit of water if necessary, so that you have a batter that is just a bit thicker than milk. Notice how it bubbles after you add the coconut milk. I recommend test-cooking one before thinning the batter.
6. Heat your pan over medium heat. Wipe a few drops of oil over it using a paper towel. Stir the batter and pour in 3-4 tablespoons, depending on the size of the pan. Working quickly, hold the handle(s) and give the pan a quick swirl so that the batter comes to the top edge. Swirl once only, as you want the edges to be thin and lacy.
7. Cover the pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Uncover and check. The center should have puffed up a bit, and will be shiny, but dry to the touch. When ready, loosen the edges with a small spatula and serve immediately. These need to be served hot out of the pan.

We also made a tasty shrimp curry to go with the appam:

Shrimp in Coconut Milk (Chemeen Pappas)

Servings: 6
This is a creamy, spicy and delicious shrimp dish. When you cut the shrimp in half lengthwise, they curl like corkscrews. Unlike many curries we’ve made, this one came together really quickly. We’ll certainly make it again.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons (45 ml) vegetable oil
1 teaspoon (5 ml/3 gm) mustard seed
1/8 teaspoon (⅔ ml/½ gm) fenugreek seeds
10 fresh or frozen curry leaves
2 cups (480 ml/480 gm/½ lb) thinly sliced onion
2 teaspoons (10ml/8 gm) minced garlic
1 teaspoon (5ml/4 gm) minced ginger
2 fresh green chiles, split lengthwise
2 teaspoons (10 ml/10 gm) tomato paste

Ground masala
● 4 teaspoons (20 ml/7 gm) ground coriander
● ½ teaspoon (2½ ml/1½ gm) paprika
● ¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml/¾ gm) cayenne
● ¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml/¾ gm) black pepper

1¼ teaspoons (6¼ ml/7½ gm) salt
¾ cup (180 ml) coconut milk
1 ½ pounds (750 gm) medium or large shrimp, shelled and deveined and sliced in half lengthwise if large

Directions:
1. In a large skillet with a lid, heat the oil over medium heat. When hot add the mustard seeds and cover until they stop popping. Add the fenugreek seeds and stir until they color lightly. Add the curry leaves (they will sputter and spatter), wait about 20 seconds, then add the onions and fry until they are soft, but not brown.
2. Add the ginger, garlic and green chiles and cook for one minute. Add the tomato paste, dry masala and salt and stir and fry for another minute. If it dries out, add a few drops of water.
3. Add ½ cup (120 ml) of the coconut milk, along with 1 cup (240 ml) of water. Increase heat to medium-high and cook at a strong simmer, uncovered for 5-10 minutes to thicken the sauce and blend the flavors.
4. Add the shrimp, and cook, stirring, until they have all changed color and curled up. This will take less than 5 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp. Add the remaining ¼ cup (60 ml) of coconut milk, bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Taste for salt and serve immediately.

Since we had leftover coconut milk we tried another challenge recipe, Carrots with Tropical Flavors. The picture doesn’t really do them justice: they were delicious…

Ingredients:
1 pound (½ kg) carrots, about 5 medium, peeled
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil
about 8 fresh curry leaves
2 tablespoons (30 ml/15 gm) minced seeded green cayenne chiles
3 tablespoons (45 ml/27 gm) minced shallots
2 teaspoons (10ml) rice vinegar (I used lime juice)
1 teaspoon (5 ml/6 gm) salt
¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml/1 gm) sugar
½ cup (120 ml) coconut milk
¼ cup (50 ml) water
coarse salt, optional
cilantro (coriander) leaves to garnish

Directions:
1. Julienne or coarsely grate the carrots. Set aside.
2. Place a deep skillet with a tight-fitting lid over medium-high heat. Add the oil, then add half of the curry leaves, the chiles and the shallots. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring.
3. Add the carrots, stir, and add the vinegar, salt, sugar and mix well. Increase the heat and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes, until they give off a bit of liquid.
4. Add the water and half of the coconut milk and bring to a fast boil. Stir, cover tightly and cook until just tender, 5-10 minutes, depending on size. Mine took about 5 minutes. Check to ensure the liquid has not boiled away and add a little more water if it is almost dry.
5. Add the remaining coconut milk and curry leaves. Simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and taste for seasoning. Sprinkle with coarse salt, if desired, and garnish with chopped cilantro leaves.

Round 2: Vindaloo!

We had another go at making appam, and although we were aware of our stick-to-the-pan problem from the first attempt, I’m afraid these weren’t any prettier. We’d tried to make them thinner by using the thin coconut milk from the bottom of the can, but it didn’t help at all. They were, however, still an excellent way of mopping up our tasty pork vindaloo, which came from My Indian Kitchen: Preparing Delicious Indian Meals Without Fear or Fuss by Hari Nayak which we had the good fortune to review this month.

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

Use your Noodle! (Daring Cooks Cook Noodles…)

2011-07-14T06:30:00.001-07:00

Our Daring Cooks’ challenge this month was homemade noodles. Our hostess, Steph, of Stephfood was more than generous in her definition of pasta, imposing only the rule that it be made without the aid of powered machinery.

We make pasta most weekends (with extras for quick midweek meals) and have posted about it before. However, we’d never made it fully from scratch, so it was a fun challenge to try. Certainly very simple, though even this month we made pasta again and chose to use the food processor instead (and so aren’t counting it in the challenge)

As mentioned before, Steph was a very gracious hostess, so included in the noodles category were gnocchi, spaetzle, rice noodles and more. As ever, we were inspired by the variety and quality of the dishes produced by our fellow Daring Cooks, which can be found here…

We made 3 dishes for this challenge, representing 3 kinds of noodles/dumplings; follow the links below for the recipes and gory details. First up was Duck and Spinach Cannelloni (cannelloni being a favorite pasta form factor of Mrs. Monkeyshines.) Next, we returned to a perennial favorite – Potato Gnocchi, paired on this occasion with a selection of seasonal vegetables. And last but by no means least: Buttermilk Spaetzle with Herbs, which were the perfect foil to a ribeye steak and roasted broccoli. Thanks, Steph, for an entertaining and tasty challenge!

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

Duck and Spinach Cannelloni

2011-07-14T06:11:00.001-07:00

Many years ago in a country far, far away, The Monkey grew up in South Wales, close to a famed restaurant called The Walnut Tree. The chef/owner at the time, Franco Taruschio, was renowned both locally and nationally for his pasta dishes, and his collection of 100 great pasta dishes has become a favorite in our household. So when Steph of stephfood.com challenged the Daring Cooks to make homemade pasta, we immediately thought of Franco. We made a recipe based on his Lasagne con Sugo d’Anitra (lasagne with duck sauce), but adapted it for cannelloni based on Mrs.Monkeyshines’ predilection for this pasta form factor. Also, our pasta was based on Jamie Oliver’s recipe: however instead of making it in the food processor as usual, we adhered to the challenge stipulation of not using any sort of motorized accessory. (Our basic introduction to pasta making can be found here.) We also wanted to use some Asian spinach, which has appeared at our local farmers’ market this year and has a really rich spinachy flavor.

Ingredients

For the pasta (makes enough for leftovers):
3 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour

For the duck sauce:
1 duck breast
2 oz bacon, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 stick celery, diced
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/4 cup white vermouth
1/2 large bunch spinach, shredded
2 1/2 oz tomato puree
fresh parsley, salt and pepper to taste

For the veloute sauce:
1 oz flour
1 oz butter
1/2 pint chicken stock

parmesan cheese for topping

Start by making the duck sauce. Sear the duck breast, starting skin side down and pouring off/reserving the duck fat that is rendered. When the skin starts to get crispy, turn over and cook the other side, then remove to a plate and mince finely. Using some of the reserved duck fat, render the diced bacon then add the diced carrot, onion and celery to make a mirepoix. When the vegetables are soft, add back the duck meat and the vermouth, and cook until the liquid is reduced. Add the tomato puree and enough water to make a thick sauce, then reduce to a paste (about 15 minutes). Add the spinach and cook until it’s wilted. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

For the veloute sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour, stirring constantly for 3-4 minutes. Gradually add the broth and mix in, stirring constantly to prevent lumps from forming.

To make the pasta, we followed our basic recipe but this time used our hands instead of the food processor to mix the ingredients together. We have the photos to prove it!

From top: Eggs and flour ready to mix; mixing the dough; kneading the dough; rolling out the pasta; cutting into cannelloni-sized squares

To assemble the lasagne: Cook each sheet in boiling water for a few seconds, then quench under cold water. Roll up a few spoonfuls of the duck and spinach filling in each square, and pack them into a pre-greased baking tray. Pour the sauce over and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

From top: Cooking and cooling the noodles; rolling the lasagne; assembling the lasagne

Bake in a 400ºF oven for 30-40 minutes until bubbling; remove and rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Buttermilk Spaetzle with Herbs

2011-07-14T06:08:00.001-07:00

Finding a reliable spaetzle recipe became a bit of an odyssey Chez Monkeyshines. We love the little gems, but, as is common with many simple dishes, couldn’t manage to make them without ending up with a) gummy gooey sludge on the plate and b) a monumental mess in the kitchen.

After months of research and trial and error, followed by more error, it was clear that there are several classes of spaetzle recipes and there are also several methods of forming them. You not only have to find the right recipe, but you must also use the right cutting technique for that recipe or heartbreak calls again.

There’s a very thick dough which you can cut by hand or using a spaetzle cutter. Some recipes yield a batter that I still don’t quite know what you do with. The recipe I finally settled on is somewhere in between: not thick enough to cut, but liquid enough that it presses easily through a ricer. If you see a recipe that suggests pressing the mix through a colander, run. There are few activities in the kitchen less fun than wrangling either thick sludge or runny batter through a colander set over boiling water. Ask me how I know..

Anyhow, hope we haven’t scared you off by now, because they’re so worth it. They’re even easy enough for a weeknight and won’t trash the kitchen. As always, this recipe comes from significant adaptation of an existing recipe, this time from Bon Appetit. On a whim, we added buttermilk and love the gentle tang it lent. But often we use milk if we didn’t plan in advance or are too lazy to go to the store. And we vary the herbs to pair with whatever else is going on the plate and of course with whatever’s on hand.

Buttermilk Spaetzle with Herbs

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry ground mustard
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp fresh herbs, minced (if you substitute dried herbs, reduce the volume by about half)
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk

Salt and several quarts of water for boiling the spaetzle

2 Tbsp butter

Add the flour, salt, mustard and pepper in a medium sized bowl and mix to combine.
Add the herbs and stir again
Beat the eggs and add to the bowl, then add the buttermilk. Mix until all there is no dry flour remaining. You should have a moderately stiff dough. dough just after mixing
Cover the bowl and let it rest for an hour. None of the recipes I’ve read do this, so maybe you can skip it, but I did it once and for the first time was pleased with the result, so now I always rest the dough.
Bring water and salt in a large saucepan to a boil. You’ll want the water to be fairly close to the top of the pot to make the next bit easier (not at the top, but not way down either). About halfway to the boiling point, start warming a skillet over medium heat. If you don’t preheat the skillet, your lovely spaetzles will all stick to the skillet and uncontrollable sobbing may ensue.
When the water boils, raise the heat in the skillet and melt the butter.
Use a spatula to scoop half of the batter into a potato ricer and, hovering just over the water level, press the dough into the stockpot. You might need to slice them off using a table knife. I know they look like they’re all going to clump together but somehow they don't. Give the pot a gentle stir if you’re really concerned. When the spaetzle float, skim them out with a slotted spoon and transfer to the skillet. Repeat with the rest of the dough. dough being pressed into the boiling water a minite later we skim the spaetzle out and transfer to the skillet
Stir the spaetzle around in the butter and cook until they’re just browned.
Serve and enjoy!

We certainly hope that you like the spaetzle and find that this recipe works for you too!

Potato Gnocchi alla Primavera

2011-07-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Many years ago we attended a course called ‘Hands on Gnocchi’, given by Chef Staffan Terje, who at the time was at Scala’s Bistro in San Francisco and is now chef/owner of the wonderful Perbacco. We covered all kinds of gnocchi (which, as we learned, can be any one of a diverse range of small dumplings), including semolina gnocchi, spinach ricotta gnocchi, butternut squash gnocchi (which can be found elsewhere in the Monkeyshines archives) and potato gnocchi. We find ourselves often coming back to potato gnocchi, as they are a great vehicle for all kinds of sauces and flavorings – so the latest Daring Cooks challenge was a perfect excuse to break out the recipe again. We almost always pan fry our gnocchi rather than boiling them; the crispy shell seems to be the perfect foil for the soft, pillowy interior.

Ingredients

4 cups of baked potato (we use Russets)
1 whole egg + 1 egg white, beaten
1/2 cup flour
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp each grated nutmeg and white pepper
1/2 tbsp Kosher salt

Extra flour for dusting and olive oil for pan frying
Basil cut into thin strips (chiffonade) for serving

For the Primavera:

Assorted spring/summer vegetables, cut into bite-size cubes where appropriate. We used zucchini, pattypan squash, squash blossoms, grape tomatoes, leek and corn:

First, bake the potatoes until they are soft (about 40 minutes at 425ºF). Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, then leave in the over (with the heat off) for a further 10 minutes to dry them out. Rice the potatoes using your favorite ricing implement.

Place the riced potato and all the other dry gnocchi ingredients in a large bowl and gently mix together – we lift the dry ingredients in a motion similar to running your fingers through someone’s hair. Then fold in the egg until a soft dough has formed. It’s important not to mix too hard, or the gnocchi will be heavy and gummy:

Next, dust your work surface with flour and gently roll out the dough into a thick rope (again, taking care not to press too hard) – there may be spots that break or aren’t 100% incorporated – this is preferable by far to over-mixing. Cut the rope into delicious bite-sized pieces:

Cook the gnocchi in batches a hot skillet with a little oil, turning as each side gets brown. (Be careful – as the pan gets hot, the later batches will cook faster than the first!)

To make the vegetables, saute lightly in a little oil, seasoning to taste. Keep it simple – the beauty of this combination is the fresh vegetable flavors paired with the rich, cheesy gnocchi.

Serve the gnocchi with the vegetables scattered over them, and if you like finish off with a little basil chiffonade. Enjoy!

Potato Salad The Daring (but Healthy) Way

2011-06-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

So who can resist a challenge like that? Jami, in true Daring cooks fashion, gave a few potato salad recipes to try. We, in our standard Monkeyshines fashion, ignored them completely (sorry Jami! It’s not you it’s us. Really)

As you probably guessed from the image above, we went for two different salads. First, a refreshing Herbed Potato Salad made with steamed red potatoes and then a more hearty Grilled Potato and Sausage Salad. Both are really quite healthy, yet despite that, tasty.

Herbed Potato Salad

You can use any sort of potato in this one, though small red bliss potatoes are our favorite as they are attractive and absorb the salsa verde dressing very well. Steam the potatoes to best retain their color.

Ingredients:

1 pound potatoes

Salsa Verde:

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp capers
2-3 sweet pickles
1/2 tsp anchovy paste
2 cups of assorted herbs: Parsley, Basil, Cilantro, Sage, Dill, Oregano, Mint, Thyme. We usually use 3-4 different herbs and vary the proportion based on what’s fresh and on hand.
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Steam or boil the potatoes until soft. As noted above, if you’re using red potatoes, then we recommend steaming. Otherwise, boiling is fine.
While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the salsa verde:
Chop the garlic, capers, pickle, and herbs finely – or whiz them in a food processor.
Put this mix in a bowl then stir in the mustard and vinegar. Again, this can be done in a food processor if you want.
Slowly stir in the olive oil until you achieve a smooth consistency – you should have a nice, thick sauce. You can do this in a processor, but be careful not to turn it into a mayonnaise!
Season with S&P, taste and adjust as you see fit.
Drain the potatoes, and turn out into a separate bowl. Stir in about 1/2 cup of the salsa verde or until it looks/tastes right.

You’ll probably have leftover salsa verde. Serve the rest on grilled bread, pork chops, pasta, chicken, more potato salad – the sky’s the limit.

Grilled Potato and Sausage Salad

We pretty much made up this salad on the fly – we knew we wanted to grill the potatoes, then decided that the salad should serve as a main course lunch. It was delicious and when we make it again, we’ll certainly vary it with whatever produce looks good at the market at the moment.

Ingredients:

1 pound small potatoes: fingerling, yukon gold or red bliss
2 small (or 1 normal) red, yellow or orange bell peppers
1/2 pound chicken sausage
olive oil

for the vinaigrette:
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

3-4 basil leaves

Directions:

Get your grill going so the coals are hot.
Place the potatoes in a bowl or microwaveable steamer, them cook in the microwave for 3 minutes to just lightly cook them
Remove the potatoes from the microwave and toss lightly with olive oil.
Place the potatoes, peppers and sausage on the grill and cook thoroughly.
Remove the items from the grill and rest on a board while you prepare the vinaigrette:
Mix vinegar and mustard with S&P, whisk in the olive oil slowly until you reach the desired consistency.
Slice the potatoes and sausages into 3/8” thick slices. Slice the peppers into strips, discarding the stems and seeds.
Toss everything together, dressing the salad to taste.
Top with a chiffonade of basil.

Many thanks to Jami for hosting this challenge. She doesn’t blog, so we constantly regret not being able to post our comments at the wonderful creations she submits to the daring cooks every month. As you may or may not know, the Daring Cooks is an international club. Take a look at how people across the globe interpreted potato salad this month!

Monkey’s Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies

2011-05-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing quest to find the perfect cookie, I baked up a batch of these over the weekend. I’m not sure that they’re perfect, but they are tasty. The double chocolate comes from cocoa powder plus chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli for both), and the dried cherries are infused with kirsch to rehydrate them and given them an extra cherry kick.

Makes 15-20 cookies

¾ cup flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 stick butter (4oz)
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 egg
½ cup dried cherries
Kirsch (enough to soak the cherries)
½ cup chocolate chips

Pack the cherries into a small bowl and add enough kirsch to cover. Steep for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375°C

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder thoroughly. It helps to pass it through a sieve, particularly if (like me) your cocoa powder has been sitting in the larder for a while and is a bit lumpy…

Soften the butter (I usually take it out of the fridge and zap it for 10 seconds in the microwave) and cut into small pieces. Using a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until it’s fluffy in texture. Beat the egg and gradually mix into the butter/sugar mixture. Next, add in the flour/cocoa mixture in 3-4 additional and beat together until incorporated. Drain the cherries (Keep the kirsch; it will make a great cocktail!) and mix the cherries and chocolate chips into the cookie dough.

Place heaped dessertspoons of cookie dough onto baking sheets and bake in the preheated oven for 9 minutes; if you’re using 2 baking sheets on 2 different shelves, switch the sheets around halfway through. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer the cookies to wire racks and cool completely.

Gumbo: the good times roll

2011-05-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from Creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Growing up, I had gumbo many times. It came from a can like this:

Later, we went to New Orleans and had ‘real’ gumbo. Oh, that was delicious. But I guess what happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans. It never even occurred to either of us to actually *make* gumbo. It’s just not something you even think about out here in San Francisco. Not sure I even see it in the familiar red and white can though I confess I haven’t actually looked for it.

So again, this month’s challenge was great – it got us to make something that we’d never considered cooking before. In fact, we loved it so much, we made 2 different types: a seafood gumbo and then our twist on Gumbo z’Herbes California style. Neither one was a quick meal (though neither remotely compares to the multi-day process that is cassoulet). I can definitely see adding gumbo to our rotation: we loved it, the leftovers are sublime, and a tasty stew is perfect for our long, foggy summers.

Thanks Denise for a terrific challenge! She provided recipes for a seafood gumbo which we approximately followed, Louisiana rice and Creole spice powder listed below. All were terrific. She also provided a recipe for Chicken and Sausage gumbo that we will certainly try soon. You can see all her recipes at http://thedaringkitchen.com. You will also want to check out the gumbos created by other daring cooks – it’s really hard to make a nice picture of stew. But so many people did and created some incredibly mouthwatering dishes.

In reading up about gumbo, there are as many recipes as there are grandmothers. The common ingredients are a roux, made with vegetable oil and flour and then cooked dark, a thickener: usually either filé (sassafras powder) or okra, and the ‘holy trinity’: chopped onions, celery and bell peppers. The roux is pretty much the direct opposite of every roux I’ve ever made and very much required a leap of faith. Although we have filé that we brought back from New Orleans, we used okra for the thickener in the seafood gumbo because we love that vegetable and are always happy to find a new (to us) way to use it.

The seafood gumbo was fantastic. Mmmm.. tasted exactly the way I thought it should.

Seafood Gumbo

Adapted from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh
Servings: 5

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup flour
1 large onion, diced
1/2 pound crab meat
1/2 pound spicy smoked sausage links, sliced ½ inch (15mm) thick 1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup sliced fresh okra, ½ -inch thick slices – you might also want more for garnish or to add later, as this part mostly breaks down into the stew.
Leaves from sprig of fresh thyme
1 1/2 quarts chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1/3 pound lobster meat (or you could use shrimp – if we didn’t use some leftover lobster, we’d probably have used shrimp and made a shrimp stock instead..)
1/2 cup minced green onions
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Basic Creole Spices, to taste
Worcestershire, to taste
Tabasco, to taste
2-3 cups cooked Basic Louisiana White Rice

Directions:

Because of the super hot roux, it’s really important to prep all your ingredients first and have them ready to use when you need them. The roux is not something you can just leave unattended while you chop your veg.

1. Prepare chicken (or shrimp) stock
2. Prepare homemade Basic Creole Spices
4. In a large cast-iron or heavy-bottomed pan, heat the oil over high heat. Whisk the flour into the hot oil – it will start to sizzle. Reduce the heat to moderate, and continue whisking until the roux becomes deep brown in color, about 20 minutes.

5. Add the onions. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir the onions into the roux. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and continue stirring until the roux becomes a glossy dark brown, about 10 minutes.

6. Add the sausage and stir for a minute before adding the celery, bell peppers, garlic, and okra. Increase the heat to moderate and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes.

7. Add the thyme, chicken stock, and bay leaf. Bring the gumbo to a boil, stirring occasionally.
8. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, skimming off the fat from the surface of the gumbo every so often.
9. Add the lobster, crabmeat and green onions to the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Make sure everything is ready to serve before adding the shellfish to the gumbo. DO NOT OVERCOOK your shellfish.

10. Season with salt and pepper, Creole Spices, Worcestershire, and Tabasco.
11. Serve in bowls over rice. We also garnished ours with more okra, fried with cornmeal and some of the Creole spice. Yum!

It was good to the last bite.

Gumbo z’Herbes

I’d been eyeing an Epicurious recipe for Gumbo z’Herbes for years. This is a very different style of gumbo: a mix of greens stewed with ham. Apparently, tradition dictates that you always use an odd number of greens, which we did by carefully classifying what was a ‘green’ and what was an ‘herb’ (totally different of course!). So the challenge was the perfect opportunity to try the recipe, though, sticking to our custom, we didn’t follow it in any way shape or form..

Our idea was to modify the traditional recipe with what’s local and fresh and make a California version. We used fresh nopales (cactus paddles) for the thickener and pretty much every green thing we found at our weekly farmer’s market. It was fantastic! So fresh and delicious. The most tedious part was washing then blanching all the greens – by no means difficult, but not speedy either. If you make this (and we really hope you do!) don’t follow our recipe – just like we didn’t follow Epicurious’s recipe – get whatever’s fresh and good at your market and enjoy!

This recipe also makes a huge portion. That’s great, because the leftovers are, as always, even better. The recipe served 4, (including seconds) with at least 6 leftover portions.

The Greens:

1 large bunch mustard greens, stems stripped
1 large bunch turnip greens, stems stripped
1 bunch Asian spinach
1 bunch okra leaves (leaves picked)
1 bunch watercress
1 bunch pea shoots, large stems picked
1 bunch sorrel, stems picked

The Trinity:

1 green bell pepper
½ large onion
5 stalks celery
3 paddles nopales (cactus)

The Roux:

2/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup flour

Other:

1 lb diced ham
1 bunch green onions, sliced
6 cups chicken broth
3 leeks, sliced
2-3 tablespoons mixed fresh green herbs
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Wash and prepare the greens.
Braise the greens in a large stockpot with about a cup of water in each batch. I think it took us four or five batches with the greens filling the pot about 2/3 full. Drain and set aside. Rinse the stockpot between each batch so that the liquid doesn’t get bitter.
Pulse the blanched greens in a food processor or roughly chop them by hand. You aren’t looking to make a puree, but just to get the leaves to a size that you’ll be able to eat with a spoon later.
Fry the ham in a heavy skillet to render any fat and make the edges slightly crisp, then remove the meat and use the same pan for the roux.
Cook the roux, stirring continually over medium heat until a light brown/peanut butter color. This took us about 15 minutes.
Add the diced bell pepper, onion and celery; cook 5-10 minutes then add the diced nopales (so maybe now it’s a quaternity?) Cook a few minutes more, then add the broth, leeks, greens and green onions. Season to taste with salt, pepper and cayenne, then add the diced ham and continue to simmer until thick in texture.

Serve with Rice. We also added cornmeal dumplings to ours. They were really good – I don’t think you need both dumplings AND rice, but go with what you like. We also topped ours with a little fried okra. In fact, if I had any complaint about this dish (and I really don’t) it’s that there wasn’t any okra in it.

Basic Louisiana White Rice

Adapted from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh
Servings: About 4 cups

Ingredients

1 tablespoon chicken fat, extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
1 small onion, minced
1½ cups Louisiana (or another long-grain) white rice
3 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1-2 pinches salt

Directions:

1. Put the fat, oil, or butter and the onions into a medium saucepan and sweat the onions over moderate heat until they are translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Pour the rice into the pan and stir for 2 minutes.
3. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.
4. Add the bay leaf and salt.
5. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 18 minutes.
6. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, and serve.

Basic Creole Spices

From My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh
Makes ½ cup

Ingredients

2 tablespoons celery salt
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground allspice

Directions:

Mix together all spices in a bowl. Transfer the spices to a clean container with a tight-fitting lid. Store up to six months.

Containing the Daring Cooks

2011-04-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge was to make a savory edible container. Was there ever an opportunity to just go nuts than that? Whoo-boy, within minutes our tiny brains were practically bursting with so many ideas:
pie, empanadas, cornish pasties, calzones, bread bowls, stuffed zucchini, stuffed tomatoes, stuffed potatoes, stuffed peppers, crepes, dosas, potato bowls, chicken in lettuce cups, enchiladas, spring rolls, chinese steamed buns, gazpacho in cucumber cups, pasta bowls (with meatball ‘eggs’!)…
And then, of course, our fellow cooks really showed us what for – the forums were brimming with wonderful ideas: chicken skin bowl full of stir-fry chicken (hello kitty!), lacy parmesan cups, dried beet bowls, even a chex mix bowl – really awesome stuff all around. The Daring Kitchen is even sponsoring a contest, so check out the great things people made and cast your vote!
So what did we do? We started with the idea of a choux pastry puff. I’ve seen (and made) many cocktail snacks using choux puffs (like a cream puff, but usually stuffed with a salad or mixed with cheese), but on consideration had never seen a savory version of an eclair. Well, of course, we couldn’t let that one go, so we started with our own version of a lobster roll, encased in a tarragon puff. Nom nom!

‘Lobster rolls’ in tarragon choux eclairs

These were excellent. And I feel relieved now that eclairs have had their moment in the savory limelight.
We also wanted to make a cone. But cone of what? We occasionally see cones of foie gras on menus, but didn’t really want to so there. Finally we decided on a semolina cracker cone filled with grapefruit and avocado salad.

Grapefruit and avocado salad in a semolina cracker cone

We used our go-to semolina cracker recipe, rolled out in the pasta maker to a slightly thicker setting than usual so that the cones wouldn’t get soggy. We then cut the dough into half circles and then rolled and baked them on molds made from aluminum foil.

Forest of cracker cones

it was fiddly, but the absolute silliness of eating a salad cone was well worth it! In all honesty, the crispy shell was a nice foil to the salad.
Finally, we made one of my favorite spring dinners: artichoke stuffed with tarragon chicken salad.

Artichoke stuffed with tarragon chicken salad

Yep, lots of tarragon this month. It’s one of the ways we celebrate spring, I guess. As long as artichokes are in season, they are what’s for dinner.
We also made two types of stuffed pepper: both a vegetarian tandoori pepper and chile rellenos. These are regulars in the dinner rotation, and got gobbled up without any photography.
Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com! Thanks Renata!

Chocolate, Cherry and Brown Butter – oh my!

2011-03-07T17:44:00.001-08:00

Those who know me know that I live in dread fear of cake. I can make souffle without batting an eye, smoke my own bacon, you name it. But cake… call me Ishmael. It’s my nemesis.

Of course, that doesn’t stop me from trying. About a year ago, I came across a recipe in Smitten Kitchen for a Pear and bittersweet chocolate cake. It sounded really good – and it sounded like there was more pear and chocolate than cake. Maybe I had a chance.

Meh. I am sure it was me, not the recipe, but still. For all the work, I expect more than Meh. Work in this case being defined as a) going to the store since we usually don’t have chocolate on hand and b) psyching myself up to do battle with c-a-k-e again.

Flash forward a year and we’re planning dinner for friends. Dinner, of course, must include dessert. And we’d determined that dessert would use either the blueberries or the Montmorency cherries that we’d put up in the freezer last summer. In the end I decided to try again at this recipe, substituting the sour cherries for pears. Bingo!

Maybe the best way to describe the result is that there is only one tiny slice left today although there were only four of us at the dinner table.

Chocolate, Cherry and Brown Butter Cake

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen which was in turn adapted from

Al Di La’s Torta di Pere
Courtesy of Al Di La Restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, at room-temperature
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups sour cherries, pitted (I thawed frozen cherries, canned would be OK, but not the canned gloppy pie filling kind)
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and dust with flour, set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan (because it will foam a lot) and cook it until the butter browns and smells nutty (about 6 to 8 minutes). It helps to frequently scrape the solids off the bottom of the pan in the last couple minutes to ensure even browning. Remove from the flame but keep in a warm spot.

Using a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the eggs on high speed until pale and very thick – expect this to take about 8-9 minutes.

Add the sugar to the eggs and whip a one minute more.

Moving quickly, add the flour mixture and brown butter: Add one third of the flour mixture, then half of the butter, a third of the flour, the remaining butter, and the rest of flour. Whisk until just barely combined — no more than a minute from when the flour is first added. With a spatula, gently fold the batter until the ingredients are combined.

Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle the cherries and chocolate chunks over the top, and bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch, about 30-40 minutes, or a tester comes out clean.

Remove from the pan and cool thoroughly. We served it with gently whipped cream.

The Daring Cooks run hot and cold

2011-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

This month the Daring Cook’s challenge was to make cold soba noodles and tempura to accompany them.

Mrs. Monkeyshines was initially a bit dubious – she’s not the biggest fan of Japanese flavors, which often taste strongly (to her) of seaweed or fish. Further, we’ve had cold noodles for lunch before and, well, they left us a bit cold. However, we do like to honor the DC’s and give everything a try and really are we glad we did. These noodles had us merrily slurping away. This recipe will certainly enter our rotation – especially come the warmer months ahead.

The challenge was pretty open to what we could make, but Lisa from Blueberry Girl asked that we respect Japanese cooking/eating by keeping your food, clean, fresh and simple. For that reason we chose a riff on our favorite duck salad as the Brussels sprouts and mushrooms are in season now and we thought that the duck would pair perfectly with buckwheat soba noodles. The Monkey made a fantastic miso dipping sauce which really brought it all together. Thank you Lisa for hosting this challenge – it was definitely a hit.

Hiyashi Soba

Recipes courtesy of Globetrotter Diaries and About.com-Japanese Food
Serves 4

Soba Noodles:

Ingredients
2 quarts (2 Liters) water + 1 cup cold water, separate
12 oz (340 g) dried soba (buckwheat) noodles (or any Asian thin noodle)

Directions:

Cooking the noodles:

Heat 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the noodles a small bundle at a time, stirring gently to separate. When the water returns to a full boil, add 1 cup of cold water. Repeat this twice. When the water returns to a full boil, check the noodles for doneness. You want to cook them until they are firm-tender. Do not overcook them.
Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse well under cold running water until the noodles are cool. This not only stops the cooking process, but also removes the starch from the noodles. This is an essential part of soba noodle making. Once the noodles are cool, drain them and cover them with a damp kitchen towel and set them aside allowing them to cool completely. While they’re cooling, you can make the tempura.

Common Hiyashi Soba Toppings:

Thin omelet strips
Ham
Boiled chicken breasts
Cucumber
Boiled bean sprouts
Tomatoes
Toasted nori (Dried Seaweed)
Green onions
Wasabi powder
Finely grated daikon (Japanese radish)
Beni Shoga (Pickled Ginger)
We used 1 leg duck confit;
2 scallions, julienned; and
1 carrot, peeled into strips

All toppings should be julienne, finely diced or grated. Prepare and refrigerate covered until needed.

Serving:

Traditionally soba is served on a bamboo basket tray, but if you don’t have these, you can simply serve them on a plate or in a bowl. Divide up the noodles, laying them on your serving dishes. Sprinkle each one with nori. In small side bowl or cup, place 1/2 cup (120 ml) of dipping sauce into each. In separate small side dishes, serve each person a small amount of wasabi, grated daikon, and green onions.
The noodles are eaten by sprinkling the desired garnishes into the dipping sauce and eating the noodles by first dipping them into the sauce. Feel free to slurp away! Oishii!

Tempura

Recipes courtesy of pink bites and itsy bitsy foodies
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 egg yolk from a large egg
1 cup (240 ml) iced water
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) plain (all purpose) flour, plus extra for dredging
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) cornflour (also called cornstarch)
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (2½ gm) (0.09 oz) baking powder
oil, for deep frying preferably vegetable
ice water bath, for the tempura batter (a larger bowl than what will be used for the tempura should be used. Fill the large bowl with ice and some water, set aside)

Very cold vegetables and seafood of your choice ie:

Sweet potato, peeled, thinly sliced, blanched
Carrot, peeled, thinly sliced diagonally
Pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed, thinly sliced blanched
Green beans, trimmed
Green bell pepper/capsicum, seeds removed, cut into 2cm (¾ inch)-wide strips
Assorted fresh mushrooms
Eggplant cut into strips (traditionally it’s fanned)
Onions sliced
We used Brussels sprouts, halved then steamed 2 minutes to just soften them and
King trumpet mushrooms sliced ~ 1/8” thick

Directions:

Place the iced water into a mixing bowl. Lightly beat the egg yolk and gradually pour into the iced water, stirring (preferably with chopsticks) and blending well. Add flours and baking powder all at once, stroke a few times with chopsticks until the ingredients are loosely combined. The batter should be runny and lumpy. Place the bowl of batter in an ice water bath to keep it cold while you are frying the tempura. The batter as well as the vegetables and seafood have to be very cold. The temperature shock between the hot oil and the cold veggies help create a crispy tempura. Our batter was initially too thick – it coated the mushrooms evenly and made them sort of gummy. We added more water to the batter and the texture improved hugely.
Heat the oil in a large pan or a wok. For vegetables, the oil should be 320°F/160°C; for seafood it should be 340°F/170°C. It is more difficult to maintain a steady temperature and produce consistent tempura if you don’t have a thermometer, but it can be done. You can test the oil by dropping a piece of batter into the hot oil. If it sinks a little bit and then immediately rises to the top, the oil is ready.
Start with the vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, that won’t leave a strong odor in the oil. Dip them in a shallow bowl of flour to lightly coat them and then dip them into the batter. Slide them into the hot oil, deep frying only a couple of pieces at a time so that the temperature of the oil does not drop.
Place finished tempura pieces on a wire rack so that excess oil can drip off. Continue frying the other items, frequently scooping out any bits of batter to keep the oil clean and prevent the oil (and the remaining tempura) from getting a burned flavor.
Serve immediately for the best flavor, but they can also be eaten cold.

Miso Sauce

1cup light chicken stock
1/3 cup Sweet Vermouth
2tbs soy sauce
1/2 tsp white miso paste
1 scallion, sliced thin

This was our rendition of the dipping sauce – probably not too traditional but the sweet vermouth worked surprisingly well. Heat the vermouth gently to cook off the alcohol; add the chicken stock, soy sauce and miso and heat together. Remove from the heat and cool; add the scallions prior to serving.

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

Duck Confit with Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms

2011-01-30T14:22:00.001-08:00

During last month’s Daring Cook’s cassoulet challenge, there was much chatter in the forums about what to do with the rest of the duck confit people were making. For us, that’s generally an easy one. Aside from continuing to eat cassoulet leftovers, the legs can be pulled out and cooked within about 10 minutes for a quick midweek dinner.
One of our favorite recipes, worth a batch of confit in it’s own right, is this very simple warm salad of duck, mushrooms and Brussels sprouts. It’s not really the prettiest thing to photograph, but of course, we’re really all about the taste here in the Monkeyshines household.

Serves 2
2 duck legs, confited
12 oz Brussels sprouts
8 oz mushrooms (we generally use king trumpets, though chanterelles are also good and regular field mushrooms are fine too)
2 Tbsp shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste.
Directions:
Remove the duck from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking.
Wash and trim the sprouts, then cut in half. Microwave the sprouts 2-3 minutes so that they’re still crisp, just starting to get tender, then remove and set aside.
Rinse the mushrooms and slice into bite-sized pieces.
Remove the duck from its container and wipe off any visible fat. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, then cook the duck, skin side down for 5 minutes. Pour off excess fat as needed. Turn the legs over and cook just a minute longer, then remove to a cutting board to cool.
Drain excess fat from the skillet, then add the mushrooms, shallots and garlic. Cook until the shallots are translucent and the mushrooms are starting to soften. Add the Brussels sprouts and cook until they are nicely browned. Add salt and pepper to taste.

While the sprouts and shrooms are cooking, pull the duck meat from the bones and tear or slice into bite-sized pieces. Slice any crispy skin bits into strips.

Spoon the mushrooms and Brussels sprouts onto a plate, top with the duck and garnish with the crispy skin if desired.

Le Vrai Cassoulet

2011-01-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

We <3 <3 <3 cassoulet.

We chose our wedding location to be near our favorite restaurant for cassoulet, The Ledford House. Well, OK, also because that same restaurant is on the Mendocino coast, a place that we love. And where we first fell in love. But you really can’t discount the draw of their cassoulet. As Tony, the owner, says, “It’s to live for”.
For the uninitiated, cassoulet is a French winter stew. It’s peasant-type food, made with the ingredients on hand during the cold winter months: beans and preserved meats for the most part. There are as many recipes as there are French grandmothers and devotion to any one recipe is as fierce as one feels to one’s grandmother. For my part, tomatoes are verboten in the cassoulet – probably because the Ledford House doesn’t serve theirs with tomatoes. Others will swear that they’re essential. So when Lisa Michelle and Jenni announced that this month’s Daring Cooks challenge would be cassoulet – I was overjoyed. But I really couldn’t bring myself to follow their recipe – it looked like all the main elements were the same - but it would be like visiting someone else’s grandmother on Christmas. To bring something new to the table, though, we did make our own sausage.
Below is a pretty steady roster of the ingredients we use in our cassoulet. The specific cut of meat varies based on what looks good at the butcher or what we have on hand. Sometimes I use a lamb shank, more often I use lamb steaks or a chunk of lamb leg – then the preparation approach will vary based on this decision. As with any traditional type dish, you should adjust as needed to suit your taste, ingredients and time. This isn’t a dish to rush, but it also isn’t one that requires much fuss or attention – nearly all the time involved is idle while the duck brines, the beans cook, etc. We hope that you fall in love over it too. And like true love, it’s even tastier the next day.

Cassoulet

Prep and Cook Time: Approx. 3 1/2 hours plus overnight to soak the beans. Not counting the extra day or two to confit your duck, if you’re doing that yourself.
Serves 4 + generous amount of leftovers
Ingredients:
1 pound dried white beans
1/3 pound bacon or pork belly
1 large onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
1 – 6” sprig fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
5-6 large cloves garlic
1 pound lamb steak
1 pound garlic sausage *
4 legs duck confit
1 Tbsp Salt
Garlic breadcrumbs to garnish
* The ideal sausage is a fairly coarse Toulouse sausage. In the US ‘garlic sausage’ seems to cover a gamut from hot dogs on up. a mild Italian sausage could work too – avoid anything too spicy as it’ll really change the nature of the dish. And, please, no hot dogs..
Directions:

Rinse and soak the beans overnight. I have learned to salt them during the soak (though not during the cook) and they come out consistently creamy and nice.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Dice the bacon or pork belly, peel and dice the carrots and onion, dice the celery. In a large Dutch oven, heat the bacon gently to render out some of the fat, then add the vegetables and sauté until just starting to brown.
Drain the beans, then add to the Dutch oven and add just enough fresh water to cover the beans and vegetables. Add the thyme and rosemary. Peel the garlic cloves and add them to the pot whole (they’ll disintegrate on their own by the time this dish is done). Cover and bake for an hour.
beans and aromatics before baking
Stir the beans and check to see if you need to add more water. If your herbs have already come off their stems, pick out the stems now – or any time before you serve.
When the beans are soft (usually after an hour and a half of cooking), dice the lamb into approx. 3/4” squares. Sauté the meat separately to brown it on all sides, then add to the beans and cook, covered, for another hour. You can also salt the mix at this time. Don’t bother to wash the sauté pan, as you’ll use it again later.
after an hour we added the lamb to the beans
At this point you can continue to cook the cassoulet or turn it off if dinnertime is still far away. I like to start prepping the sausages about an hour before I plan to serve the meal – enough time that the flavor integrates, but not so much time that the sausages disintegrate.
Sauté the sausages until lightly browned. Add water to braise them if they’re cooking too quickly – try not to cook all the way through. When firm, remove from heat and slice into rounds about half an inch thick. Add the sausage to the beans and stir to incorporate. Check the seasoning and adjust if needed. Continue to cook with the lid on.
An hour before serving we add the sausages
Remove the duck legs from their container and wipe off any surface fat. Sauté over very low heat with the skin side down to render the fat out. I find that I have to pour off fat several times during this process. When the duck has come to temperature and most of the fat is poured off, raise the heat and cook to just bronze the legs on both sides.
Remove the beans from the oven and raise the heat to broil. Arrange the duck legs on top of the beans, top with garlic breadcrumbs. Return the pot to the oven, uncovered this time and cook until the duck browns and crisps and the beans start to crisp around the edges of the pot.
The final dish – cassoulet topped with duck confit and breadcrumbs
Serve a generous scoop of the cassoulet topped with a duck leg. Garnish with more thyme if desired.

Blog checking lines: Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

Saucisses de Toulouse

2011-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

This was our second ever attempt at making sausages (as to the first attempt – the less said the better…) We wanted to try something for our most recent cassoulet (a Daring Cooks challenge) and so went hunting the four corners of the Internet for a suitable recipe. The traditional sausage for cassoulet is the Toulouse sausage, made from pork, smoked bacon. wine and garlic; we chose to use this recipe which also includes nutmeg as a flavoring.

Start by grinding a piece of pork shoulder, making sure to include some of the fatty bits to substitute for the pork belly in the recipe. Thorougly mix in garlic, salt, sugar, white wine, white pepper and nutmeg (using roughly the proportions in the recipe) and leave in the fridge overnight so that the flavors are well integrated:

Next day, it’s sausage making time. We obtained some casings from our favorite butcher (Guerra’s – we love these guys!) and since we don’t have any bespoke sausage making apparatus we broke out the piping bag with a large nozzle. By holding the rinsed casings onto the end of the nozzle, we were able to fill them without too much trouble:

The end result: Beautiful links of Saucisses de Toulouse!

Duck Confit

2011-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Duck confit is one of those magic dishes that keeps well (as in up to 8-10 weeks), tastes rich and delicious, but is shockingly simple to make. It’s the kind of thing I like to have on hand during cooler months because we can make a nice meal in just minutes – perfect for those days when you just don’t feel like cooking.

Although it’s traditional to use duck fat in preparing confit, here in San Francisco, duck fat costs more than the meat itself. And you really do need a lot of it. Unable to justify that sort of expense, we use lard instead. We’ve had duck prepared with real duck fat and have not detected any noticeable difference.

We generally make 6-8 legs, which carries us through a few meals over the course of a couple of months before its time to make a new batch. Some of our favorite ways to serve the duck confit include:

Cassoulet
Warm duck salad with mushrooms and Brussels sprouts
Duck with lentils, spinach and bacon

Making the confit is a two-day process, but it’s nearly all idle time. I personally like to let it set for a day or two before serving too, though I don't have any specific data to support this preference. Here is our recipe:

Duck Confit

Ingredients:
8 duck legs
4 lbs lard
12 fresh bay leaves (or 6 dried bay leaves)
about a dozen juniper berries
1/4 cup parsley
6-8 sprigs of thyme
1 tsp black peppercorns
half cup of coarse salt

Day 1:
Grind half the bay leaves, half the juniper berries, and the parsley, thyme and peppercorns together in a mortar and pestle until you have a paste. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can use a food processor with a small bowl. Mix in the salt and stir until blended. You should have a lovely green salt.

Rub the salt over both sides of each duck leg – you want about 1 Tbsp of salt per leg and set the duck into a non-reactive pan. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours.

Day 2:
Heat the oven to 200 degrees F.

Rinse each duck leg thoroughly and place in a roasting pan. Don’t skimp on this rinse or your end result will be overly salty. You could also use a slow cooker for the cooking, though you might encounter issues with the legs falling apart on you in that more cramped environment.

Tuck the remaining bay leaves and juniper berries among the legs.

Spoon maybe 3/4 of the lard over the duck legs and place the pan in the oven. I don’t bother pre-melting the lard or trying to smooth it as it’ll take care of itself in the gentle heat over time.

Check the duck after about 45 minutes to determine if you need any more fat or if you need to remove any before the pan overflows. Cook for 6-7 hours until the duck legs are golden brown. The pictures below show the duck at 1 1/2 hours and again at 3 hours.

Carefully lift each leg out of the melted fat and place in a sealable container (I use a big rectangular Tupperware). Try to avoid getting any of the floaty bits, spices, or duck juice into the container and these can contribute to causing spoilage. Spoon or pour the lard from the pan over the duck to cover it completely. I scooped the fat using a coffee cup and poured it through a strainer to keep the bits out.

Let the duck cool, then refrigerate until you’re ready to use. You’ll likely have extra fat in the roasting pan – separate out the duck stock and then you can reserve the remaining fat for another use – in this batch I refilled my lard bucket about 3/4 full after completely covering the duck legs for storage.

To serve, gently pull as many legs as you want out of the container, scraping any surplus fat back into the container. It can be challenging to pull the meat out without it falling to bits. Heat in a dry skillet over low heat at first to render out excess fat. Pour off the fat, then raise the heat to sear the meat.

Grace Needs Help

2011-01-13T15:52:00.001-08:00

Our lovely friend Grace has a rare kidney disease and is in dire need of a transplant from a donor with type O blood. Unfortunately, neither Dave nor I have the right blood type, nor does Grace's delightful husband Tim. Tim’s frantically trying to arrange a multiple-donor scenario where he gives his kidney to someone and creates a chain that leads to her receiving the one she needs. I’m really hoping something simpler than that can happen.

We know it’s a stretch to ask a virtual friend of a virtual friend for help in this way, but we all know that the world does work in surprising ways. If you want to know more, check out Grace’s website. you can also talk to Nancy Salonpuro, the kidney donor coordinator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

thanks.

Holiday Fougasse

2010-12-19T09:50:00.001-08:00

This year we’ll be away for Christmas. As a result, the house isn’t decorated for the holidays. No tree, no lights. These halls are not decked. Still, I hanker for the glitz of Christmas. So instead of traditionally shaping a batch of Pear – Blue Cheese – Bacon Sourdough Fougasse, I opted for Christmas trees and Snowflakes.

Hee Hee, spell check thinks I meant outgases instead of fougasse. Stupid spell check.

Of course, sourdough fougasse with pears, bacon and blue cheese would be a treat any time of year and in any shape, but they really feel perfect right now, as it’s lashing with rain outside. Just like real snowflakes, these are disappearing rapidly.

I used Point Reyes blue, which is quite creamy and mild. If you want something more assertive, a Danish blue or even gorgonzola would work well. So would cherries in place of the pears. The bacon is never optional..

Fougasse with Pears, Bacon and Blue Cheese

makes about a dozen hand-sized breads

400 grams bread flour
75 grams rye flour
280 grams water
238 grams 100% hydration sourdough starter
12 grams salt
25 grams olive oil
117 grams blue cheese
125 grams bacon
60 grams dried pears (mine were very dry – use more if you have the thick, heavy type of dried fruit)

Directions:

Dice the pears into small bits and place in a small bowl. Measure out the water them pour some over the pears to just cover them. I put mine in the microwave for 30 seconds to facilitate rehydration. if you have the thick, moist kind of dried fruit, you can skip this step (aside from the dicing).
Dice the bacon and gently sauté until it’s just barely cooked. Spoon onto a paper towel to drain the fat.
Crumble the cheese into chunks. I put mine in the freezer so that it wouldn’t disintegrate when I mixed it into the dough.
In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flours, remaining water, and starter and mix until it is just blended. Cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Add salt, olive oil to the dough. Drain the water from the pears and add that too. Mix on medium speed until the dough reaches medium gluten development. This took me about 5 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a floured board or counter and flatten. Spread the pears, bacon and cheese on top of the dough, then fold until the add-ins are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled contained and let it ferment for 2 1/2 hours with a fold after the first hour.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces, then shape each as desired. It does work best to chop straight down (like a guillotine) rather then trying to slice the dough with a knife. I used a bench scraper and the top of my cheese grater to make the cuts. A spatula might also work, though mine are all too big for this particular size of fougasse.
One the cuts are made, transfer the dough to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and stretch to open the cuts and form the final shape.
Dust with flour, cover and proof for another 2 1/2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Spritz the fougasse with water to generate steam when baking. Place the baking sheets in the oven, reduce the heat to 450 and bake for 18 minutes or until lightly browned. I baked one batch of my fougasse on a baking stone and the others just on the sheet pans. To be honest, I didn’t notice any difference in the result, so use a stone of you have one, but don’t bother if you don’t.
Let cool on a wire rack, then enjoy!

This recipe has been shared with Yeast Spotting on the Wild
Yeast blog.

Happy Holidays to everyone from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen!

Poaching with the Daring Cooks

2010-12-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

This month the Daring Cooks challenge focused on the technique of poaching. Specific recipes were provided to poach an egg, or alternatively to poach a home-made pine nut and sundried tomato sausage.

Because Mrs. Monkeyshines won’t eat eggs in their native form and was also concerned about the calories contained in the vegan sausage (there are 909 calories in 135 g of pine nuts!), we started looking elsewhere.

The first task, of course, was to determine exactly what poaching is – yes, even though we disregarded the main portion of the challenge, we still were eager to carry it out exactly. Such is life in the Monkeyshines household. According to about.com:

Poaching, simmering and boiling are really three different stages of the same cooking method. Each of these methods describes cooking food by submerging it in hot water (or another waterlike liquid like stock). What defines each one is an approximate range of temperatures, which can be identified by observing how the water (or other cooking liquid) behaves. Each one — boiling, simmering and poaching — has certain telltale characteristics:

Poaching refers to cooking food in liquid that has a temperature ranging from 140°F to 180°F. Poaching is typically reserved for cooking very delicate items like eggs and fish. At poaching temperatures, the liquid won't be bubbling at all, though small bubbles may form at the bottom of the pot.
Simmering is distinguished by cooking temperatures that are a bit hotter than with poaching — from 180°F to 205°F. Here we will see bubbles forming and gently rising to the surface of the water, but the water is not yet at a full rolling boil.
Because it surrounds the food in water that stays at a fairly constant temperature, food that is simmered cooks very evenly. It's the standard method for preparing stocks and soups, starchy items such as potatoes or pastas, and many others. One of the downsides to simmering is that vitamins and other nutrients can be leached out of the food and into the cooking liquid. (we’re not 100% convinced here, as we usually cook our pasta at a healthy rolling boil..)
Boiling is the hottest of these three stages, where the water reaches its highest possible temperature of 212°F. It's actually the method that is least likely to be used in cooking. That's because the violent agitation caused by churning bubbles characteristic of a rolling boil will often damage the food.

Braising, for the curious, is when you first brown the item (usually meat), then cook it with some water, but not submerging it.

Lately we’d observed several references to poaching in olive oil, so we turned to the internet and found a recipe for Olive oil poached shrimp that apparently came from the show Top Chef.

Olive oil poached shrimp, cucumber and poblano pepper salad, avocado and risotto with chestnuts and bacon.

The poached shrimp were a revelation. It seemed impossible that cooking them in the oil that was just warm could possibly work, but it did. in just 7 minutes we had perfectly cooked shrimp that tasted exactly like, well, shrimp. When we’ve sautéed them in the past it seems that shrimp always develop little hard bits or slightly off flavor. We’ll absolutely use this technique in the future when cooking shrimp.

However, the recipe as a whole was a serious pain in the *ahem* – and was frightfully expensive as it called for an entire bottle of oil to poach 8 shrimp. (we poached 12 shrimp in about 2/3 of our bottle of oil and it was fine, but still.. ) The cucumber and poblano pepper salad was surprisingly tasty, but could have been made much more simply. Also, we infused the oil with crushed red peppers and coriander seeds, but did not detect any of their flavors in the shrimp (though that was really just fine, flavorwise).

Buoyed by our success at poaching, and having quite a bit of olive oil leftover, we tried another recipe – this time poaching artichokes that were miraculously still appearing at the farmer’s market, despite it being the dead of winter here. Again, the poached items were perfectly tender and flavorful and on the whole this recipe was much more successful (meaning worth the effort), so we’ll share it with you.

Herb and Lemon Poached Baby Artichokes

adapted from Food and Wine

12 baby artichokes (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 cup olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 thyme sprigs
2 rosemary sprigs
2 sage leaves
4 bay leaves, preferably fresh
Lemon Zest for garnish (optional)

Directions

Pour the olive oil and the white wine, onion, coriander seeds, peppercorns, thyme, rosemary, sage and bay leaves into a deep non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a simmer over moderately high heat, then reduce the heat to low. Try to maintain a steady temperature of 140-160 degrees F.
While the oil is heating, prepare the artichokes by slicing off the top half of the leaves, trimming off the stem, and paring off all outer, tough leaves. As you finish each one, place it in the oil. While this means that some are cooked longer than others, it works out OK in the end since you’re cooking at such a low temperature.
Cover and cook until the artichokes are tender when pierced with a fork, about 20 minutes. Let the artichokes cool in the cooking liquid for 30 minutes.
Poaching the Artichokes
Transfer the artichokes to a work surface; discard the cooking liquid. Cut the artichokes in half lengthwise and arrange them on a platter. Garnish with long strips of lemon zest if desired (we really liked this addition to the recipe and used a zester to produce the strips) and serve warm or at room temperature.

Now for the poaching experiment that didn't go to plan... We recently obtained a beautiful white truffle and wanted to make a dish that would showcase its unique flavor, so we kept it simple - homemade pasta tossed in a little butter with shaved truffle and parmesan cheese. During a trip to Piemonte (Italy) a few years ago, I learned that truffles and eggs are a mysteriously magical combination so I decided to add a poached egg to my dish. (Mrs. Monkeyshines still won’t try even a truffled egg, so just a single poached egg was involved). But what an egg! - this egg had been sitting in the same box as the truffle and was just bursting with truffle aroma.

I followed the challenge recipe - water temperature no higher than 180F, cook for 3 1/2 minutes - and all looked good until I came to remove the egg from the water. I scooped it up with a slotted spoon, only to find that the white drained away through the slots...

Here is all that was left of my beautiful truffle-infused egg. Not quite sure what went wrong, except maybe it wasn't cooked enough?

I made the best of the situation and at least had the remains of the egg with my truffled pasta, which was still very tasty:

Blog checking line: Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan, and Homemade Sundried Tomato & Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie num num.

Check out the many marvelous creations that the other daring cooks created this month too.

Dungeness Crab Tortelloni

2010-12-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

It’s crab season here in San Francisco and this year we’re determined to make the most of it. Last night, instead of our usual crab cakes (which will get a post of their own one of these days) we decided to try our hand at a pasta dish.

Searching the farmer’s market for inspiration, we found a gorgeous bunch of leeks simply begging us to take them home and turn them into crab and leek ravioli. Well, tortelloni, actually, as they’re vastly easier to make as well as less likely to fall apart when cooking.

Can we toot our own horns here? These were simply divine. We kept it really simple and the crab was sweet and perfect. We sauced it with leeks braised with just a touch of wine and butter.

Crab and Leek Tortelloni

serves 2

1 recipe pasta

Filling:

8 oz crab meat, cleaned
1 small leek
1 Tbsp cilantro
zest of 1 Meyer lemon

Sauce:

2 Tbsp butter
4 small leeks
2 Tbsp butter
Ground Pepper to taste

Directions:

Finely chop the leek and gently sauté it until it’s wilted but not browned. Let cool. Mince the cilantro. Mix the crab, lemon zest, cilantro and leeks. We didn’t try to break it up too much, just combined the ingredients.

Roll out the pasta and cut into approx 2 1/4 inch circles. Working one at a time, spoon a dollop of filling onto each round then fold into a tortelloni. Detailed steps and a video are available here. If the filling is too wet (you’ll know if it starts to interfere with your sealing the parcels), squeeze out any excess water. Place the tortelloni on a board that is generously floured and let rest while you make the sauce.

Slice the leeks and gently sauté in butter. Add about 2 oz of water and the wine and simmer until the leeks are soft. Grind in pepper as desired.

Bring a pot of water to a full boil. Slide the tortelloni into the water and boil about 3 minutes or until they’re all floating consistently. Drain the pasta and serve, topped with sauce. Do not grate cheese on this one as it will make the crab taste fishy! I know i find it nearly impossible to not put cheese on, well, anything, but this is the one exception.

Enjoy!

Rise and Shine: Sweet and Savory Soufflés

2010-11-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

This month we were honored to host the Daring Cook’s November challenge. Before going any farther, we want to thank all the DC’s who posted their results in the forums – your creativity and sense of fun with the challenge was so inspiring! We learned so much from everyone.

When we first joined the Cooks, we started to think about what we would choose in the highly unlikely event that we were selected as host. We quickly set our hearts on soufflé – it seemed like the epitome of Daring Cookery – something that is classic, known around the world, is easy to procure ingredients for and that scares even seasoned cooks. So far so good.

When were were actually selected to host, we then had to set about choosing recipes that we thought were good and that could be reliably repeated. We wanted a dessert soufflé and also one or two that could be a main dish, appetizer or side dish. Not so easy.

We determined that we’d publish a cauliflower soufflé recipe as one of our options. We reviewed a lot of different recipes and saw that they were all pretty much variations on the same core set of ingredients: roux + egg yolk + cheese + filling + egg white. We chose one that looked straightforward. Yuck. My notes described it as eggy and dense. So we tried another. Not much improvement. Then we started tweaking – was it too much cauliflower? too much cheese? too wet? more egg whites? We tweaked as many of the variables as seemed right, while still following the pro forma recipe. After a parade of cauliflower, er.. dishes, we were getting despondent. How could soufflé have this reputation of being light and fluffy and dramatic when everything we did yielded gooey pudding?

just peeking over the edge – three cauliflower soufflés

We gave up. But in the process of trying to find an alternate recipe, I noticed that none of the pictures of savory soufflés looked any better than what we were turning out. In fact, our looked pretty darned good compared to most of them.

So we started on a path of rethinking everything. Our first attempt was to beat the egg yolk over a hot water bath as you do for a sabayon. Presto! This tripled the volume of the egg yolks, making a stable foam by gently cooking the egg yolk as air was being beaten into it. We tried this on a watercress soufflé and it was, if anything, almost too light, but we sure weren’t going to quibble.

Watercress Soufflé using the sabayon technique

Our dear virtual friend and Daring Cook Audax Artifex, host of the Daring Cooks Sushi challenge, stepped it up to a whole new level. We were right – everything that you think about soufflé is probably wrong – but we didn’t take it nearly far enough.

Here are some tips based on his research – and that we have tested and proven to be effective:

Avoid fats in your filling as they cause the egg whites to break down and the soufflé won’t rise. To the extent that you do use fat, make sure that it is encapsulated or stabilized. This is why our sabayon technique worked, as it stabilized the fat in the egg yolk by cooking it gently and incorporating air into it. However you’re better off skipping the yolks and the roux entirely. And use low-fat milk rather than cream. That contradicted everything I thought I knew about French food right there!

Use cornstarch (aka corn flour) instead of your roux. Cornstarch will encapsulate the fats in, say, grated cheese, and also provide strength to your soufflé so it doesn’t collapse right away. We made our Banoffee soufflé without cornstarch and it rose gorgeously, but immediately plummeted. Corrected that mistake the second time around.. The starch can be used with cocoa powder in a chocolate soufflé, or simply blended with a vegetable puree or cheese for a savory soufflé.

Add any fat in grated form into the mixture which ensures that the egg whites are set before the grated fat melts. Either add the solid fatty ingredient in a finely grated form to a nearly set sauce (like chocolate), or add the fatty food and corn-flour to the hot sauce and beat really hard while the sauce cools to divide the fat into fine droplets that solidify and are coated by the sauce.

So why are traditional recipes repeating the same old mistakes? I really don’t know. Dessert soufflés generally rise much more dramatically than savories – largely as they involve less fat and use a greater ratio of egg whites to filling. What we do know is:

that the Daring Cooks turned out some spectacular soufflés and you can see their results and get their recipes here – the creativity of their dishes was astounding
Soufflé is not a complicated or temperamental dish to make (provided that you ignore nearly every recipe that’s been published in the past)
Just about any flavor combination can be translated to a soufflé
Even when a soufflé falls, it still (almost always) tastes great

So with all that said, we’re publishing two brand new recipes that take into account everything we learned along the way. We're also posting the original challenge recipes that honestly were good and rose proudly the first time, but that we’ll probably reformulate when we make them again (but time and our cholesterol counts prevent us from making and retesting before posting time) and a link to the original Daring Cooks write up which contains some additional tips and links for making a souffle.

Horseradish Soufflé

This soufflé was intensely horseradish-y. It had a perfectly crisp skin and creamy interior. We put steak on the menu as a pairing to it. This is maybe one of Linda’s new all-time favorites.
Serves 2

2 oz / 57g Sharp Cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp Milk
2 Tbsp Horseradish
1 1/2 tsp Cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Egg whites
1 oz Butter
Panko crumbs (or regular breadcrumbs) to coat the dishes
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Prepare 2 1-cup soufflé dishes by buttering them, then coating evenly with panko crumbs. Set aside in the refrigerator while you prepare the soufflés.

Grate the cheese.

Heat the milk gently in a medium saucepan. Stir in the cornstarch and stir to dissolve thoroughly. Add the cheese and horseradish and stir until the cheese melts. Remove from heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff peaks.

left: stiff peaks right: not yet ready

Fold a small amount of the egg whites into the cheese mix. Working in 2-3 batches, fold the cheese mix into the remaining egg whites.

Remove your prepared soufflé cups from the refrigerator and gently spoon the soufflé mix into them. smooth the tops with a spatula and clean thoroughly around the rim – if you don’t do this last step the soufflés will rise at a rakish angle.

Bake 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Banoffee Soufflé with salted Pistachio Brittle and Chocolate Sauce

Banoffee pudding is a British dessert that combines bananas and toffee. We created this interpretation of the pudding as a special dessert for Dave’s birthday. The brittle recipe is adapted from Bon Appétit – it makes a lot more than you need (I actually made a third of the recipe and we still had leftovers) however the leftover toffee is yummy in its own right. I also spooned out some of the toffee before adding the nuts, so that I’d have a just plain brittle for the soufflé.

Serves 3

Salted Pistachio Brittle

2 cups Sugar
1 cup Corn Syrup
1 cup Water
Pinch Salt
2 Tbsp Butter
1/2 tsp Baking soda
2 cups pistachio nuts, shelled
1 Tbsp Flaked sea salt or Kosher salt

Spread half the butter on a baking sheet, then set aside.

Heat the sugar, water and corn syrup in a heavy pot over medium-high heat until it reaches 330 degrees F. I found this to take about 20 minutes both times I made the recipe. Keep an eye on it as the temperature really rockets toward the end.

Remove from heat and add the remaining 1 Tbsp butter and baking soda, then stir in the nuts. Spread the mix quickly on the prepared baking sheet, evening it out with a spatula as necessary. Sprinkle with the coarse salt and let cool.

Caramelized Bananas

4 Tbsp - 1/2 oz Brown sugar
1 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Water
2 Bananas, sliced into 1/4 inch slices

Melt the brown sugar, butter and water together. Add the banana slices and gently stir until the sugar thickens and the bananas are evenly coated.

Remove the slices to a plate and set aside 6-8 slices to use as garnish.

Caramelized Banana and Toffee Soufflé

3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Caramelized banana from recipe above
1 1/2 tsp Corn starch
2 Tbsp toffee, smashed into small bits (I used toffee without nuts, but that's just me..)

Butter and brown sugar for preparing the soufflé cups

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

Butter the soufflé cups thoroughly and then coat evenly with brown sugar. Set aside in the refrigerator (some recipes say that this helps the soufflé to rise. I found that it didn’t do any harm and got the dishes out of my way while working on the rest of the steps).

Mash the banana and blend with the corn starch. We used an immersion blender for this, but you could do just as well with a whisk or spoon. Stir in the toffee bits.

Combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat until stiff, but not dry. Spoon the banana mix into the egg whites, then pour into your prepared soufflé dishes. As always, even the tops and clean the rims of the dishes with a damp finger to assure an even rise.

Bake for 15 minutes, garnish with reserved banana slices, pistachio brittle and chocolate sauce as desired.

Chocolate Sauce

1 oz Sugar
2 oz Water
2 oz - 20 grams 70% Chocolate

Heat the ingredients until smooth, then keep warm to serve.

Chocolate Soufflé

Serves 6. Adapted From BBC Good Food Recipe by Gordon Ramsay. As we discovered, dessert soufflés rise much more reliably than savory ones to, so there’s really no need to tweak this recipe further – it is delicious as is. However, if you want to change out the cream for milk, you won’t be putting your splendid dessert at any risk at all.

Ingredients

FOR THE DISHES

2 Tbsp (30 ml) 1 oz (30g) unsalted butter, for greasing
Cocoa powder or finely grated chocolate

FOR THE CREME PATISSERIE

2 tbsp (30 ml) (18 gm) (2/3 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tsp (10 gm) (0.35 oz) caster (superfine) sugar (regular sugar is OK)
½ tsp (4½ gm) (0.15 oz) corn starch (aka corn flour)
1 medium egg yolk
1 medium whole egg
4 Tbsp (60 ml) milk
5 Tbsp (75 ml) heavy cream (or double cream)
3 oz (90gm) good-quality dark chocolate preferably 70+% cocoa solids, broken in pieces
2 Tbsp (30 ml) (15 gm) (½ oz) unsweetened cocoa powder
Optional: 2 tsp orange zest or 2 tsp minced chipotle chile en adobo or 1 tsp chipotle chile powder. (The chile version is a Monkeyshines favorite!)
Optional: powdered sugar for dusting

FOR THE EGG WHITES

6 medium egg whites
6½ Tbsp (95 ml) 3 oz (90g) superfine/caster sugar (if you don’t have it, regular sugar is OK)

Directions:

Heat oven to moderate 375 ˚F/190 ˚C/gas mark 5.
Take four 1 cup/~240ml soufflé dishes and brush them completely with softened butter. Tip a little cocoa powder or grated chocolate into each dish, roll the dish around tilting it as you do so it is evenly lined all round.
For the crème patisserie, mix the flour, sugar and corn starch into a small bowl. Put egg yolk and whole egg into a medium sized bowl, beat lightly, then beat in half of the flour mixture to give a smooth paste. Tip in the rest of the flour mixture and cocoa powder and mix well.
To make the ganache, pour the milk and cream into a pan and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and beat until it is melted and smooth with no lumps.
Gradually stir hot chocolate ganache into the paste from step 3, and add the orange zest or chile if using. This is your crème patisserie.
Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks with an electric whisk. Sprinkle in the sugar as you are mixing. Keep whisking to give stiff, firm peaks to give volume to the soufflés.
Stir about 2 tbsp (30 ml) of the beaten egg whites into the crème patisserie. Carefully fold in a third of the rest, cutting through the mixture. Fold in another third (take care not to lose the volume), then fold in the rest.
Spoon the mixture into the dishes. Run a spoon across the top of each dish so the mixture is completely flat. Take a little time to wipe any splashes off the outside of each dish, or they will burn on while cooking.
Bake the soufflés for 15-17 minutes.
The soufflés should have risen by about two thirds of their original height and jiggle when moved, but be set on top.

Watercress Soufflé

Next time we make these soufflés, we’d add a teaspoon or two of corn starch to help them keep their puffiness a little longer. We probably would still add the egg yolk to help give the soufflé some body and richness.
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side dish, 2 as an entree

Ingredients
2 Tbsp 1 oz/30g butter plus additional for the soufflé dish
3½ Tbsp (55 ml) 1 oz/30g plain (all purpose) flour
1 cup/8 fluid oz (240ml) milk
½ cup (120 ml) 2 oz/60g parmesan cheese, finely grated plus additional for the soufflé dish
1 cup (250ml) 2 oz/60g finely chopped de-stemmed watercress (can substitute spinach) – about 1 large bunch (this measure is the leaves after they’ve been washed, de-stemmed, and chopped)
4 large eggs, separated
½ tsp (2½ ml) (3 gm) (.1 oz) prepared mustard
¼ tsp (1¼ ml) (1½ gm) (0.05 oz) cream of tartar*
Salt and pepper to taste

* If you can’t find cream of tartar, a dash (~ ½ tsp) of lemon juice can be substituted

Directions:

1. Butter the soufflé dish(es) thoroughly, then grate a small amount of cheese in each dish and tap so that the sides are evenly coated with the cheese. Place the dish(es) in the refrigerator until needed (according to some sites, this helps the soufflé climb).
2. Preheat the oven to moderate 350˚F/180˚C/gas mark 4
3. Wash and chop the watercress if you haven’t already.
4. Finely grate the parmesan cheese
5. In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour to make a roux. Cook 1 minute, then add the milk, a little at a time, and stir until just thickened, about 1 minute. Add the cheese and stir until it’s just melted. Remove from heat then add the watercress and salt and pepper.
6. In a larger pan, bring water to a gentle simmer. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl set just over this water until pale and slightly foamy – about 6 minutes. (I held the bowl just above the simmering water to be sure I didn’t cook the eggs)
7. Mix the egg yolks into the watercress sauce.
8. Beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until they form stiff peaks yet are still glossy.
9. Fold the egg whites into the sauce in 3 additions so that it’s evenly mixed, but you don’t lose too much volume.
10. Remove the soufflé dish from the refrigerator and spoon the mix into it. Use a spatula to even the tops of the soufflés and wipe off any spills.
11. Bake 25 minutes for small dishes or 40 minutes if using a large soufflé dish, then serve immediately.

Crab and Artichoke Soufflé

This recipe was tasty as is, but next time we make it, I’d likely forego the roux entirely and replace it with 2-3 tsp corn starch. I’d also whip the egg yolks over hot water, using the sabayon technique from the watercress soufflé, above, to add a little more drama to the final product.
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side dish, 2 as an entree

Ingredients
1 cup (250 ml) 4 oz/120g crab meat, flaked and lightly-packed
½ cup (125 ml) 2 oz/60 g finely chopped cooked artichoke hearts (frozen, fresh or from a jar is OK, but please don’t use the marinated-in-oil style), Alternatively, lightly sautéed leeks would be nice here too.
2 large egg yolks
3 large egg whites
½ tsp (2½ ml) (3 gm) (.1 oz) salt
¼ tsp (1¼ ml) (1½ gm) (0.05 oz) cream of tartar*
1 cup (250 ml) 2 ½ oz (75g) Gruyere cheese, shredded
½ tsp (2½ ml) (2 gm) (0.07 oz) white pepper
1 Tbsp (15 ml) (14 gm) (½ oz) butter
1 Tbsp (15 ml) (9 gm) (1/3 oz) flour
1 tsp (5 ml) (3 gm) (.1 oz) dried chives or tarragon
1 cup 8 fluid oz (250ml) milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Additional butter and bread crumbs for preparing the dishes

* If you can’t find cream of tartar, a dash (~ ½ tsp) of lemon juice can be substituted

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to moderate 375 ˚F/190 ˚C/gas mark 5
2. Prepare dishes – you can use one 2-quart (US)/1.9 litre or six 1-cup/240 ml soufflé dishes – by buttering the dish, then coating with bread crumbs. (You may have some left over soufflé mixture if you go with the smaller soufflé dishes.)
3. Chop the artichoke hearts into ¼”/0.5cm dice. If you use frozen or from a jar, then there’s no need to cook them. If you are using fresh, then steam gently until just softened, about 5 minutes or sauté over low heat until just ever so lightly browned.
4. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux. – you just want to get the flour evenly blended to a paste, not cook the roux for any length of time. Gradually stir in the milk, mixing all the time. Add herbs, then the cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted and you have a thick sauce. Remove from heat.
5. Beat the egg yolks well and gently warm them, either according to the instructions for watercress soufflé (above) or by adding some of the cheese sauce. Gradually stir the egg yolks into the cheese sauce until well blended.
6. Add the artichoke and flaked crab meat to the cheese sauce.
7. Beat the egg whites until at the stiff peak stage
8. Fold the whites in thirds into the sauce.
9. Spoon the mixture into your baking dish and level the tops using a spatula. Be sure to wipe up any spills and make sure the edge is clean.
10. Bake for 40 min if you’re using a large soufflé dish or 25 min if using smaller dishes – the soufflé should be richly browned.

Thanks to all the Daring Cooks for playing along and to any of you who’ve made it all the way down to the end here.

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

Croissants

2010-11-11T17:05:00.000-08:00

For me, the holy grail of baking has always been the croissant. I’d tried a couple of times to make croissants, but had not met with much success. Although I followed the recipes meticulously, my previous attempts yielded flat, gummy, rolls. Maybe they were OK for what they were, but they sure weren’t croissants.

Finally, I saw a photo of what looked like a perfect croissant on Wild Yeast’s YeastSpotting column. I simply had to try them immediately. I’ve learned now to follow the pictures closely on recipes – if the original doesn’t look good, there’s no way that my rendition is going to be better.

Success!! These were perfect! Buttery. Small(ish). Flaky. Yum. Another cozy treat as I pack on calories to prepare for winter. The recipe is directly from Sur le Table’s book The Art & Soul of Baking – Unlike most recipes, this one hasn’t needed even the slightest tweaking.

Croissants

Dough
1/2 cup (4 ounces) whole milk, warmed to 110° to 115°F
1 teaspoon plus 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) sugar
4 teaspoons active dry yeast, or 3 teaspoons instant yeast
4 cups (20 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling
2 teaspoons (1/2 ounce) salt
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup (8 ounces) cold milk

Butter block
3 3/4 sticks (14 ounces) cold, unsalted butter
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour

Egg wash
1 large egg
1 tablespoon whole milk or cream

Make the dough:
Pour the warm milk into a small bowl and whisk in 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Whisk in the yeast and set aside for 10 minutes, or until the yeast is activated and the mixture is bubbling.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, salt, and cold butter pieces.

Blend on medium speed until the butter is cut into tiny pieces. Add the yeast mixture and the cold milk. Switch to the dough hook and mix on lowest speed for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed and has formed a very rough mass. Dust a work surface lightly with flour and turn the dough out onto it. Knead the dough 3 to 5 times, to finish bringing it together. The dough will not be smooth or elastic; it will become fully kneaded and smooth during the rolling and turning process ahead. Don't overwork the dough now, or you'll have trouble rolling it later. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes.

Make the butter block:
Cut the butter into 1/2-inch pieces, toss with the flour, and refrigerate for 20 minutes. In the cleaned stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the floured butter on medium speed, scraping down the bowl once or twice with a bowl scraper, for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the butter and flour form a smooth mass. You are not trying to beat air into the mixture, just make it pliable and smooth while keeping it cold. Scrape the butter onto a piece of parchment paper or plastic wrap, wrap it up, and refrigerate while you roll out the dough.

Laminating the dough:
Lightly dust the work surface with flour. Set the dough in the center and dust the top with flour. Roll the dough into a 15 by 12-inch rectangle with a short side parallel to the edge of your work surface. Gently pull or stretch the dough to form straight edges and sharp corners. Brush any flour from the surface. Visually divide the dough lengthwise into 3 equal, 5-inch-wide sections. Spread the cold but pliable butter evenly over the top two sections of dough, leaving the bottom third empty and leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges of the buttered sections. This is best done with your fingers.

Fold the empty bottom third up over the center third of the dough. Then fold the top third down over the center. Pinch together the seams along the bottom and sides of the dough. Roll your rolling pin across the top of the dough briefly and gently 3 or 4 times to help seal the seams. This completes both the incorporation of the butter and your first turn of the dough. If the butter has become warm and squishy, wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour before continuing with the second turn. If you have worked quickly and the butter is still cold yet pliable, continue with the next turn.

Position the dough with the short side parallel to your work surface and the long fold on your left (as though you were going to open the dough like a book). Dust the dough with flour and roll it into a 20 by 12-inch rectangle. Brush any flour from the surface of the dough. Fold the dough using the book-fold method: Fold the two short edges into the center of the dough, leaving a 1/4-inch crevice between them. Line up the edges precisely and square the corners as you fold. Now fold one side over the other, as though you were closing a book. Roll your pin across the top of the dough briefly and gently 3 or 4 times to seal the seams. This completes your second turn. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate it for 1 hour.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, dust it with flour, and again roll it into a 20 by 12-inch rectangle. Brush any flour from the surface of the dough. Fold the dough using the letter-fold method: Visually divide the dough lengthwise into 3 equal, 5-inch-wide sections. Fold the empty bottom third up over the center of the dough, and then fold the top third down over the center, making sure to square the corners and fold as neatly and precisely as possible. Pinch together the seams along the bottom and sides of the dough. Roll your rolling pin across the top of the dough again briefly to help seal the seams. This completes your third turn. The croissant dough is finished. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours before cutting, shaping, and baking the dough.

Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 26 by 14 by 1/4-inch-thick rectangle. Cut the dough rectangle in half lengthwise to form two pieces that each measure 26 by 7 inches. On each half, use a ruler and paring knife or pizza cutter to make nicks along the top edge of the dough every 4 inches. Along the bottom edge, measure 2 inches in from the left side and make a nick; then add a nick every 4 inches.

Form the Croissants:
Line up your ruler with the top left corner and the first bottom nick (2 inches in from the left side of the dough). Cut along this line. This first triangle will make a smaller croissant when you shape the croissants. Then line up the ruler with the second nick on the top edge and the first bottom nick, and cut along that line, forming a tall, skinny triangle. Continue lining up the nicks and cutting until the whole sheet has been cut into triangles. Mark and cut the second half of dough in the same way.

Line up all the triangles so that their bottom (4-inch) sides are parallel with the edge of your work surface. Make a 1-inch vertical slit in the center of the bottom edge of each triangle. To shape, grasp a triangle and, with the wide end in one hand and the point in the other, very gently stretch the dough until it is a couple inches longer. Set it back on the table. Pull the slit in the bottom apart slightly and roll the corners upward and outward, widening the slit. Now roll the entire triangle toward the tip, pulling gently on the tip to stretch the dough slightly. Tuck the tip under the roll (so it doesn't pull out during baking) and place the roll on one of the prepared baking sheets. Curve the ends in toward each other to form a crescent shape. Continue stretching and rolling the dough triangles until you have shaped all the croissants and placed them on the baking sheets, allowing 2 inches between each croissant.

Make the egg wash: Combine the egg and the milk in a small bowl and whisk to blend well. Brush each croissant evenly with the egg wash. Allow the croissants to rise in a cool room-temperature spot until they are nearly doubled in size and look like they have taken a deep breath, 1 to 2 hours, depending on the warmth of the room. If you squeeze one gently, it should feel soft and marshmallow-like. Don't try to rush the rise by warming the croissants—you don't want the butter to melt.

Bake:
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400° F. Chill the croissants in the freezer for 10 minutes or in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. This will firm the butter, creating a flakier texture. Brush the croissants once more with the egg wash. Bake one sheet pan at a time, rotating it halfway through, for 17 to 22 minutes, or until the croissants are a deep golden brown. Transfer croissants to a rack to cool. until the croissants are golden brown. Transfer croissants to a rack to cool.

To serve, toast lightly to warm through.

Arancini

2010-11-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

As Autumn and Winter draw in here in San Francisco, we’re drawn increasingly to comfort foods. One of the most sinful, but delicious, of these treats is Crocchete di Riso, known more commonly here as Arancini.

We made two versions – one filled with herbed cheese and the other with a rich meat sugo. I liked the way the cheese stayed molten and stringy (read: fun to eat) for a good 20 min after cooking. These were also a touch easier to make than the meat version. Our guests marginally preferred the savory meat-filled ones, though there really weren’t many leftovers of either type..

The process is relatively simple, though we made them a day ahead so that the arancini could set overnight so that they wouldn’t fall apart during cooking.

Crocchete di Riso

adapted from Joyce Goldstein’s book Antipasti

For the Rice:
3 1/2 cups Water
1 1/2 tsp Salt
2 cups Arborio rice
2/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 tsp White pepper, ground

You’ll also need:
1 1/2 cups Breadcrumbs,
2 eggs, 1 cup Flour
Oil for frying

Bring the water and salt to a boil, then add the rice and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes until the water is fully absorbed but the rise is somewhat sticky. Stir in the cheese and pepper, then remove from heat and let cool while you prepare the filling.

For the Meat Filling:

1/4 lb Ground Beef
1/4 lb Ground Pork
1/2 Medium onion, minced
2 oz Pancetta
1 Stalk celery, chopped
1 Carrot, minced
1/2 cup Tomatoes, chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

Chop the pancetta and saute it with the onion, carrots and celery until the onion is translucent. Add the Beef and pork and saute until just lightly browned. Add the tomatoes and cook another 15 minutes until the sauce is rich and thick. Set aside to cool.

For the Cheese Filling:

4 oz Fontina cheese
2 - 3 Tbsp mixed herbs - we used Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary and Parsley

Dice the cheese into 1/2 inch-sized cubes. Mince the herbs, then roll the cheese cubes in the herbs to coat them evenly all over.

To assemble the Crocchete:

Wet your hands thoroughly. Spoon roughly 2 Tbsp of the rice into your palm and gently flatten it to a disk that is about 1/8 inch thick. For me, this pretty much covered most of my palm. Place a spoonful of the sugo or 1 cheese cube in the center of the rice disc.

Fold the sides of the rice up and over the filling. I found it helpful to use my thumb to press into the center to help round out the ball. Gently roll between your hands to even the shape into a tidy sphere. Place on a sheet tray while you repeat the process, using the rest of the rice and filling. I found it best to wet my hands each time to prevent the rice from sticking.

Get out 3 bowls and place the Flour, the Breadcrumbs and the eggs each in its own bowl. Beat the eggs until thoroughly mixed.

One at a time, dip the crochetti into the flour, then the eggs, then roll in the breadcrumbs, coating evenly each time. Place on a wax-paper or parchment-lined sheet tray. When all the balls are coated, cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

To cook:

Heat the oven to 200 degrees F and line a heat-proof plate or tray with paper towels. Pour oil into a heavy saucepan to a depth of about 3 inches. Heat to 350 degrees. If you don't have a thermometer, test the heat by tossing in a chunk of bread – if it starts to fry immediately, then the oil is hot enough (but take care that it doesn’t over heat either).

Place 2-3 crocchetti into the oil and fry until golden brown. Using a slotted spoon lift them out of the oil 2-3 times while they cook to help make sure that they heat all the way through while cooking adn that the cheese is melted. Overall, it should take 6-7 minutes to fry the arancini.

Place on the paper-lined plate and place in the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of the crocchetti. Serve while warm.

Turning over a new leaf

2010-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

We’ve made dolmas before on several occasions, but had never seen the technique of filing them with uncooked rice. Although we were maybe a bit tentative at first, this approach really worked well... we should know by now that some things have stood the test of time for a reason, right?! The rice swells up when cooking, creating a much firmer and more attractive dolma after cooking than anything we’d done before.

Anyhow, true to our custom, we didn’t exactly follow the recipes (blame Mrs Monkeyshines for that. As usual.) We made two versions one with meat and one vegetarian and gobbled them both up in no time. These are surprisingly filling, and made a delicious dinner when accompanied with whole wheat tabbouleh, baba ghanooj and a greek salad:

Lamb Dolmas

1/2 pound ground lamb
1/6 cup rice
1/4 cup onion
1 tsp dill (dried)
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp fresh mint leaves
1 tsp fresh oregano leaves
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1 clove garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste

About 2 dozen grape leaves – fresh or from a jar.

Soak the rice for 15 minutes, then drain.
Soak the grape leaves in fresh water for about 15 minutes
While the rice is soaking, mince the onion, garlic and herbs.
Mix all the ingredients except the grape leaves together in a small bowl
One at a time, remove a grape leaf from the water and snip off any remaining stem.
Center about a Tablespoon or so of filling in the center of the leaf (just above the stem)
Fold the left and right sides of the leaf inward to cover the filling, then roll from the stem end toward the top of the leaf.
Place the rolled dolma into a shallow skillet or sauté pan.
Repeat with the remaining leaves, packing the dolmas closely into the pan so that they don’t unroll.
Add water to the pan until the dolmas are about 3/4 covered. Cover the pan with a lid and place on the stove over medium-high heat.
Bring the water in the pan to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 40 minutes. Check periodically to make sure that the pan does not run dry (it didn’t for us, but did for other DC’s)
Spoon out with a spatula and serve.

Rice, Feta and Olive Dolmas

2/3 cup rice
1/4 cup feta cheese
1/4 cup onion
1/2 red or orange bell pepper
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp fresh mint leaves
1 tsp fresh oregano leaves
10 or so large black olives, pitted
Salt and Pepper to taste

About 2 dozen grape leaves – fresh or from a jar.

Soak the rice for 15 minutes, then drain.
Soak the grape leaves in fresh water for about 15 minutes
While the rice is soaking, mince the onion, bell pepper and herbs.
Coarsely chop the olives and feta.
Mix all the ingredients except the grape leaves together in a small bowl
One at a time, remove a grape leaf from the water and snip off any remaining stem.
Center about a Tablespoon or so of filling in the center of the leaf (just above the stem)
Fold the left and right sides of the leaf inward to cover the filling, then roll from the stem end toward the top of the leaf.
Place the rolled dolma into a shallow skillet or sauté pan.
Repeat with the remaining leaves, packing the dolmas closely into the pan so that they don’t unroll.
Add water to the pan until the dolmas are about 3/4 covered. Cover the pan with a lid and place on the stove over medium-high heat.
Bring the water in the pan to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 40 minutes. Check periodically to make sure that the pan does not run dry (it didn’t for us, but did for other DC’s)
Spoon out with a spatula and serve.

Thank you to Lori for hosting a fun challenge and to all the other Daring Cooks who presented some extremely inspiring rolls!

The Daring Cooks get Canny

2010-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation. Read his thorough discussion of canning techniques and also some excellent recipes if you’re new to canning.

While we are not new to canning here in the Monkeyshines household, this was nevertheless an excellent and informative challenge.

Let’s talk first about the successes:

We made a Plum Cardamom Butter that is out of this world (if we say so ourselves). And it really couldn’t have been easier to make. Monkey devoured the little bit that was left over after filling the jars in a matter of days.

We also made a Spicy Chile Chutney that tasted fantastic. It was awesome on a turkey burger last weekend.

Last, but most certainly not least, we canned fresh Montmorency cherries – commonly referred to as pie cherries or sour cherries though they aren’t so much sour as just not the sugar bombs that other cherries can be. The season for these is fleeting – some years they don’t arrive at all – so week after week we kept buying pounds of them and putting them up. Some are canned, some frozen and we look forward to enjoying them throughout the rest of the year.

These were processed using a recipe from an old British cookbook. We placed the pitted cherries in sterilized jars, then poured in boiling syrup and then baked the jars in the oven at 300 degrees for 50 minutes. This apparently does not meet current USDA standards, they say that the mix might not get hot all the way through, though since the syrup was boiling going in, we are not too concerned.

Then there was the less successful part… Over the years the safety standards for home canning have become much more conservative. Two years ago, we canned tomatoes using the directions from my grandmother’s 1950’s edition of the Joy of Cooking and they were just wonderful. We processed them in hot water for about 5 minutes. Nowadays the USDA recommends 85 minutes. Honestly, I couldn’t bear it and pulled this year’s batch out of the water after 60 minutes. We haven’t opened these yet, but you can tell by looking that there’s a world of difference. I found a can from the two-year-ago batch and the tomatoes look fresh and are packed in their lovely juice. This year’s batch have been cooked beyond recognition and are watery. While processing both the bruschetta and the tomatoes, the jars leaked just a bit during the extended boil and I think a) some water got in and b) the solids in the juice cooked out and separated.

I’ll also confess that last year I canned a batch of tomatoes and, on inspection the next day, they were bubbling vigorously. This is not a good thing – though it was very obvious and therefore we knew not to eat them. However, when I can tomatoes again next year I still plan to stay closer to the old recipe than the new one. I am not advising you to do that. I’m just saying… When I go to the work of putting up 10 pounds of tomatoes, I really want the resulting product to taste as close to a summer-ripe fresh tomato as possible. 85 minutes of hard boiling (or even 60 min) just doesn’t cut it. For me.

Tomatoes from 2010 and 2008 – this year’s batch is on the left

would you do that to these beauties?

Plum Cardamom Butter

4 lb ripe plums, halved
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp cardamom, ground from fresh pods

In a heavy saucepan, cook the plums, sugar, lemon juice and 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. Bring to a boil, then cook over a low heat until the mix is thick and pasty. This is likely to take several hours. Add the remaining cardamom, to taste – we found that the spice flavor diminished with cooking. Also, if you’re using pre-ground, you might want to add a touch more than this recipe calls for.

Pour the butter into 4 sterile half-pint (or 2 pint) jars and process in boiling water for 15 minutes. We’re assuming here that you are familiar with canning – see John’s recipes if you are not. And rest assured that this processing time is compliant with (current) USDA standard.

Spicy Chile Chutney

This chutney (or is it a relish?) is nicely balanced. The peppers aren’t particularly hot, but they cook down to something more piquant than a common bell pepper/capiscum. There’s just enough sugar to balance the acid without making it sweet.

1 pound gypsy peppers
1 medium onion
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black peppercorns

Dice the onion finely and sauté. Coarsely grind the mustard seeds, coriander seeds and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, then add to the onions.

Slice the peppers into approx. 1/2 inch rounds and add to the onions. Add salt, then cover and reduce heat and simmer partially covered until very soft – about 15-20 minutes.

Stir in the vinegar and brown sugar. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until jammy – about another 20 minutes.

Pour the butter into 4 sterile half-pint (or 2 pint) jars and process in boiling water for 15 minutes. As with the recipe above, this processing time is compliant with (current) USDA standard.

Pierogis

2010-08-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

We loved the idea of putting our own regional twist on pierogies, and came up with lots of ideas: unfortunately, this month we both found ourselves insanely busy with work and only managed a few renditions. They were, however, very tasty and we will definitely make them again.

Neither of us had actually ever had pierogis before, so in a shocking break for Monkeyshines in the Kitchen, we stuck pretty close to the Russian recipe that Anula shared.

Pierogies with potato, cabbage and bacon stuffing and mushroom cream sauce

This was a variation on one of our favorite cabbage dishes: cabbage with garlic and juniper. In our experience, this treatment transforms the humble cabbage into a star of the dinner table, guaranteed to win over the most ardent skeptic. In keeping with Anula’s original family recipe, we paired the cabbage with potato. And – of course – bacon, in our case some home-cured pepper bacon. Everything tastes better with bacon.

Filling:
2 russet potatoes
2 tbsp sour cream
2 tbsp ricotta cheese
1/4 large cabbage, cored and finely shredded
1 clove garlic, crushed
6 juniper berries, crushed
3 strips bacon. finely diced
1 tbsp oil (included because our bacon was very lean; I would probably omit this if the bacon were more fatty)
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauce:
1/2 lb sliced field mushrooms
1/4 c sour cream
1/4c milk
Pinch thyme, salt and pepper

Gently fry the bacon in the oil until it starts to get crisp; add the garlic and juniper berries, then the shredded cabbage. Cook over medium heat until the cabbage is sort. Meanwhile, peel and boil the potatoes until soft; drain, add the sour cream and ricotta, plus salt and pepper to taste. Mix/mash the potatoes using a hand mixer, then blend in the cabbage mixture.

Make the mushroom sauce: Sauté the mushrooms in a little oil until soft; add the milk and cream together with the seasonings and heat through. Easy as can be!

Make the Russian-style pierogi dough according to the instructions; cut into circles and add a spoonful of filling, then fold over into a half moon shape and crimp the edges with the tines of a fork.

Boil them in a large pot of salted water, then drain and serve with the mushroom cream sauce.

For our second round, we took the ‘local’ part of the challenge literally, and made a dessert pierogi featuring blueberries and lemons from our garden. For this version, we used the challenge Wareneki recipe for the dough, then filled the dumplings with a mixture of fresh ricotta, basil and lemon zest. In truth, we only made a third of the dough recipe and still had more than enough to serve 4 (of course a dessert portion is smaller than what you’d serve for dinner).

Pierogies filled with ricotta, lemon and basil and topped with blueberry sauce and basil granita

Filling:

6 oz Ricotta
zest of one lemon
1 large basil leaf, minced
1 1/2 tsp sugar

Make the dough as per the recipe. We let it rest about 30 minutes even though the recipe didn’t ask for that.

Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl.

Fill and crimp the pierogies as above.

Heat a cup or two of oil in a heavy pan and fry the pierogies until they brown. We did them in small batches of 2-3 to try to keep them from sticking to each other.

We liked the way that frying created a textural contrast to the smooth filling. We’re faintly embarrassed, though, as we’ve fried more for the Daring Cooks than we ever have – we feel compelled to declare that this is not part of our normal repertoire! The cool granita was also a nice contrast to the hot pierogi. However, it seemed that the filling tended to disappear during the cooking process – perhaps someone was..um..a little lax in the sealing process? possibly, but we point no fingers. Nevertheless, you could still taste the filling and it was delicious.

Thanks to Liz and Anula for presenting the opportunity to try something new!

The challenge recipes:

Russian style pierogi

(makes 4 generous servings, around 30 dumplings)
(Traditional Polish recipe, although each family will have their own version, this is Anula's family recipe)

Dough:
2 to 2 1/2 cups (300 to 375 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
About 1 cup (250 ml) lukewarm water

Filling:
3 big potatoes, cooked & mashed (1 1/2 cup instant or leftover mashed potatoes is fine too)
1 cup (225 g) cottage cheese, drained
1 onion, diced & sauteed in butter until clear
3 slices of streaky bacon, diced and fried till crispy (you can add more bacon if you like or omit that part completely if you’re vegetarian)
1 egg yolk (from medium egg)
1 tablespoon (15 g) butter, melted
1/4 (1.25 ml) teaspoon salt
pinch of pepper to taste

1. Combine all the ingredients for the filling (it’s best to use one’s hands to do that) put into the bowl, cover and set aside in the fridge until you have to use it.

2. Place 2 cups flour in a large bowl or on a work surface and make a well in the center. Break the egg into it, add the salt and a little lukewarm at a time (in my situation 1/2 cup was enough). Bring the dough together, kneading well and adding more flour or water as necessary. Cover the dough with a bowl or towel. You’re aiming for soft dough. Let it rest 20 minutes.

3. On a floured work surface, roll the dough out thinly (1/8” or about 3 millimeters) cut with a 2-inch (5 cm) round or glass (personally I used 4-inch/10 cm cutter as it makes nice size pierogi - this way I got around 30 of them and 1 full, heaped teaspoon of filling is perfect for that size). Spoon a portion (teaspoon will be the best) of the filling into the middle of each circle. Fold dough in half and pinch edges together. Gather scraps, re-roll and fill. Repeat with remaining dough.

4. Bring a large, low saucepan of salted water to boil. Drop in the pierogi, not too many, only single layer in the pan! Return to the boil and reduce heat. When the pierogi rise to the surface, continue to simmer a few minutes more ( usually about 5 minutes). Remove one dumpling with a slotted spoon and taste if ready. When satisfied, remove remaining pierogi from the water.

5. Serve immediately preferably with creme fraiche or fry. Cold pierogi can be fried. Boiled Russian pierogi can be easily frozen and boiled taken out straight from the freezer.

Cottage Cheese Wareneki (pierogi)

Dough:
½ cup (125 ml) milk (can be whole milk, 2% or skim milk)
½ cup (125 ml) whipping cream
3 large egg whites
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
3 cups (450 gm) all-purpose flour

1. Mix flour and salt, add other ingredients, and knead dough until you have a smooth dough. (I kneaded this dough quite a bit, and it yielded a nice, pliable dough).
2. On a floured surface roll out fairly thin (1/8” or about 3 millimeters), cut into 2” (5 cm) squares, and fill with 1 tsp (5ml) cottage cheese filling (see below).

Filling:
Traditional
1 lb (455 g) dry cottage cheese (this is usually found beside the “wet” cottage cheese in the supermarket’s dairy aisle. If you can’t find it, please see below for how to proceed with the “wet” cottage cheese.)
3 large egg yolks
Salt to taste

1. Mix well all the ingredients for the filling.
2. Put 1 rounded teaspoon (5 ml) of the filling in each square, fold corners to form a triangle, seal edges well using your fingers or a fork
3. Cook in salted, boiling water for 5 minutes.

Boiled pierogi can also be fried after boiling for a nice crunchy dumpling.

If you can’t find dry cottage cheese, simply drain normal cottage cheese by nesting the cottage in a few layers of cheese cloth or a fine sieve over a bowl.

Adapted from The Mennonite Cookbook

Herb-spiced baby back ribs with chimichurri mop sauce

2010-08-08T15:03:00.001-07:00

This is what happened when set out to make some ribs with a difference. Not that there’s anything wrong with the many excellent variations on barbecued ribs that already exist. In fact, various forms of these tasty morsels are a regular feature of the Monkeyshines Menu when we break out the charcoal grill; usually inspired by recipes in the excellent Barbecue Bible and/or Barbecue USA, both by Steven Raichlen. However, this time we wanted to take things in a bit more of a herbal direction.

Ingredients

1 rack of baby back ribs

For the rub:
2 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp Aleppo pepper flakes
1 tsp salt

For the mop sauce:
4 tbsp minced parsley
2 minced garlic cloves
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

First, make the rub: grind the spices in a mortar and pestle. Peel the papery skin off the back of the rack of ribs, and coat the ribs liberally with the rub (You can see that we just used a half rack of ribs; I’ve scaled the recipe up for a full rack.) Wrap or cover and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

The ribs are cooked using a two step process. First, they are wrapped well in aluminum foil and cooked in a low temperature (200 F) oven for 5 hours. This seems like a long time, but it guarantees that the ribs will be literally falling-off-the-bone tender. At some stage towards the end of these 5 hours, make the mop sauce: first, mix all ingredients apart from the olive oil, then gradually whisk in the oil (as if making a vinaigrette):

Remove the ribs from the oven, take them out of the foil packet and cook on a hot charcoal grill for about 10 minutes per side, basting with the mop sauce. This should be enough to give them a nice char; careful as you turn them though; they will probably be very tender and you don’t want to lose them!

As shown above, we served the ribs with some grilled corn and trumpet mushrooms. Enjoy!

Chicken and Zucchini Enchiladas with Almond Butter Mole

2010-07-16T05:29:00.001-07:00

Forgive our immodesty… but this was awesome. Definitely making this one again. It looks as if there are way too many ingredients, but they all come together beautifully in a rich, complex sauce.

Ingredients

6 dried chile Negro
5 dried chile California
3 dried Morita chiles
1/3c sesame seeds
1/2c raisins, tossed in a little oil
1 roasted tomato
1 1/2c water
1/4 recipe almond butter
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground black pepper
1/4 t ground anise seeds
1/8 t ground clove
1oz Mexican chocolate
Zest and juice of 1 lime

Toast the dried chiles in a skillet until softened. Mix together all the ingredients in a blender, and liquidize until smooth. Transfer to a skillet and cook over a low-medium heat, stirring frequently, until the ingredients have turned into a thick, fragrant paste. Next, add back 1 1/2 – 2 cups of water and continue to cook/reduce for 45 minutes.

We served these with some simple but tasty chicken and zucchini enchiladas, topped with some crema:

Veal cutlet with pistachio cream

2010-07-16T05:28:00.001-07:00

To showcase our pistachio nut butter, we made sauteed veal chops and a pistachio cream sauce. The pistachio nut butter was a beautiful pale green color, and readily turned into a smooth sauce (no actual cream was involved!)

Pistachio cream Sauce

1 cup pistachio nuts, shelled
water
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup white wine
salt

Grind the nuts to a smooth paste in a food processor, then gradually add water until a creamy consistency is achieved. Heat the cream in a saucepan and add the wine; cook until reduced, then add the lemon juice and season with salt to taste.

Veal cutlet

2 veal cutlets, pounded thin
3/4 c flour
1 tsp cornstarch
salt and pepper
cooking oil

Mix the flour and cornstarch together with the seasonings and dredge the veal cutlets in the mixture. Saute 2-3 minutes per side until cooked through and serve with the pistachio butter sauce.

Served on a bed of herbed spaetzle with zucchini:

Baci di Dama (aka Ladies’ Kisses)

2010-07-16T05:27:00.001-07:00

These little cookies are decadent. Very buttery, perfectly crisp, not too sweet. The almond and chocolate flavors were beautifully balanced and delicious. I used my ancient garage-sale cookie press to form them so they were together in no time at all too.

Adapted from Joyce Goldstein’s cookbook Back to Square One. Oh my goodness – you can pick up a used copy via Amazon for $0.63 USD – that’s the deal of the century. I’d never part with mine. What is the world coming to?? But I digress...

12 Tbsp unsalted butter (yeah, it’s a lot of butter)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup almond butter
1 1/4 cup (about 6 oz by weight) flour
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp Amaretto (optional - I used it, but will probably skip it next time)
1 1/2 oz 85% dark chocolate

Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk, flavorings, and almond butter. Mix in the flour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. Using a cookie press or piping bag if you’re more talented than me, pipe the dough onto the trays. Bake until very lightly browned, 8-10 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool.

Melt the chocolate – I used the microwave, though a double-boiler works great too. I also only melted half the chocolate, since it cools rapidly here in foggy San Francisco, then the other half later when I needed it.

Brush a thin layer of chocolate over the bottom of one cookie, then press another cookie to form a little sandwich. Repeat until all the cookies are paired.

Chicken Cooked in Almond Sauce

2010-07-16T05:26:00.001-07:00

I clipped this recipe from the newspaper years ago, but the calorie count always dissuaded me from actually trying it. While preparing the dish, we lightened it up considerably and still felt that the result was very flavorful and satisfying. The almond butter gives the sauce body and the saffron and spices give it a floral character.

This recipe is also adapted to serve 2.

Marinade:
4 oz plain yogurt
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Anaheim or pasilla pepper, seeded and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced (note: mince 2 or ~ 1 tsp worth as you want more for the sauce below)
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, minced or grated (note: again, you actually want to grate twice this amount and use half in the sauce)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
dash cayenne pepper
salt to taste
2 boneless chicken breast halves

Sauce:
2 Tbsp milk
pinch saffron
1/4 cup almond butter
1 small red onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
seeds from 2 cardamom pods, ground or 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Vegetable oil for cooking

Marinate the chicken:
Combine the yogurt and all the spices in a glass container. Add the chicken breasts, turn to coat and marinate at least 2 hours.

Make the sauce:
In a small dish heat the milk and the saffron until just warm – I warmed in the microwave for 30 seconds on medium heat. Let steep while you make the rest of the sauce.

Heat a Tbsp of oil or so in a skillet over medium heat and sauté the onions until just starting to brown. Add the cardamom, garlic and ginger, then the almond butter. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the chicken and its marinade. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked.

Stir in the saffron milk and cook one more minute.

Serve over rice.

The Daring Cooks go Nuts

2010-07-16T05:24:00.001-07:00

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

We were specifically encouraged to use the nut butter in a savory recipe – an inspired direction as it really opened our eyes to how versatile nut butter is and also how many cultures use some variation of nut butter in their most classical dishes. For the challenge, Margie and Natashya shared recipes for an Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew Dressing, an Indian-inspired Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce, and Italian Walnut & White Bean Dip with Rosemary & Sage. All these recipes as well as a deeper discussion and reference links for nut butters are available in this PDF.

True to our custom, we didn’t actually follow any of the challenge recipes, but I have to say that they looked fantastic. It was only because this has been a month beyond hectic that we did not try them as well as a few other variations that I still have floating in my head. The Asian noodle salad in particular looked gorgeous – cookbook beautiful in every single instance.

Our dishes were not cookbook beautiful. If you can have one complaint about nut butter, it might be that it is not particularly photogenic. But I do think that each of these dishes was delicious and of course is what matters.

We started with an almond butter. It was super easy to make in the food processor and we added only 1 Tbsp of oil to 2 cups of nuts, so it didn’t taste at all greasy. Because we had serious mole envy during the Stacked Enchilada challenge last May, we used some of our almond butter to make red mole served over chicken and zucchini enchiladas.

We also made an Indian-spiced chicken in almond sauce.

Having satisfied our savory requirement, we then made Baci di Dama, dainty almond butter cookies napped with chocolate.

From the beginning, though, my interest was piqued by Nut Cream, which is just like nut butter, but with water added until you have a creamy consistency. We made a pistachio nut cream and then added wine an lemon to sauce a veal cutlet. It was so simple, rich and satisfying – we’ll definitely make this again.

Each of these dishes tasted completely different. The nuts added depth and richness in each case, but also showed different personalities in each of the dishes.

So many Pâtés, so little time…

2010-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.
As usual, this challenge became license to run amok in the Monkeyshines household. It certainly exposed what we both enjoy so much about the Daring Cooks: that we have a reason to make things that we might otherwise not have thought of or have ever dared to try. And try we did – while some of our creations were more successful than others, we really enjoyed the challenge and look forward to making pâté and terrines again. Mrs. Monkeyshines, a very picky eater truth be told, was delighted that she could eat pâté without those nagging doubts about what sort of scary ingredients might be lurking within.
Our lineup included:
Country style terrine
Wild mushroom pate
Summer fruit terrine
Duck pate with wine-glazed shallots en croute
Chicken pate with spring vegetables (a Monkeyshines in the Kitchen original!)
Served with assorted breads including:

Sourdough baguettes
5 grain sourdough baguettes
Brioche
Olive levain

So June was not exactly a good month for our monkeyish figures. Or our cholesterol. But it was fun. And, since this post is already running long, we’re not going to go into the details on bread – they were each basic recipes, mostly from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes. If you want more details, please leave a comment to that effect.

Country style Terrine

This was a classic terrine using ground pork, ground veal and chicken liver. It tasted exactly as we had hoped it would, and ultimately - like all of these dishes - it was quite easy to make (although it required a bit of time, mostly for the terrine to refrigerate and rest.)
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine
1 cup finely chopped onion (1 large)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried, crumbled
1 tablespoon kosher salt or 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice or 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons Cognac or other brandy
1/2 lb chicken livers, trimmed
½ lb ground pork belly
½ lb lean pork loin
1/2 lb ground veal
12 bacon slices (about 3/4 lb)
Assemble and marinate terrine:
Cook onion in butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet, covered, over moderately low heat, stirring frequently, until soft, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and thyme and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Remove from heat.
Grind peppercorns and bay leaf in mortar and pestle, add salt, allspice and nutmeg, then mix. Add to onion mixture and whisk in cream, eggs, and brandy until combined well.
Chop the chicken livers, then add to onion mixture along with ground pork and veal and mix together well. We simply ground the livers along with the meats, but they were so soft that chopping by hand probably would have worked better.
Line bottom and long sides of terrine mold crosswise with about 6 to 9 strips of bacon, arranging them close together (but not overlapping) and leaving a 1/2- to 2-inch overhang. Fill terrine evenly with ground-meat mixture, pressing to compact it. Cover top of terrine lengthwise with 2 or 3 more bacon slices if necessary to cover completely, and fold overhanging ends of bacon back over these. Cover terrine with plastic wrap and chill at least 8 hours to marinate.
Bake terrine:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 325°F.
Discard plastic wrap and cover terrine tightly with a double layer of foil. Bake terrine in a water bath until thermometer inserted diagonally through foil at least 2 inches into center of terrine registers 155 to 160°F, 1 3/4 to 2 hours. Let terrine stand in mold on a rack 30 minutes to cool.
Weight terrine:
Place another loaf pan or a piece of cardboard cut to size and wrapped in foil on top of the terrine. Put 2 to 3 (1-pound) cans on top of this cover to weight cooked terrine. Chill terrine in pan with weights until completely cold, at least 4 hours. Continue to chill terrine, with or without weights, at least 24 hours to allow flavors to develop.
To serve:
Run a knife around inside edge of terrine and let stand in mold in a pan with 1 inch of hot water (to loosen bottom) 2 minutes. Tip terrine mold (onto cutting board, and gently wipe outside of terrine (bacon strips) with a paper towel. Let terrine stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

Wild mushroom pate

This also was delicious – in fact we were completely unable to choose a favorite between the country terrine and the mushroom pate though we certainly sampled both extensively. We made a half recipe, and it made quite a lot. The full recipe is included here.
Also adapted from Gourmet Magazine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (by substituting vegetable stock, you could get this a lot closer to vegetarian)

1 ounce (1 cup) dried porcini mushrooms
4 Tbsp (2 oz) unsalted butter
5 oz minced shallots
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup dry sherry
3/4 pound shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps thinly sliced
3/4 pound oyster mushrooms, trimmed leaving stems intact, and caps thinly sliced
1 cup heavy cream
4 large eggs
1 ounce almonds ground in a mortar and pestle or food processor
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1/3 cup fine fresh bread crumbs
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Make the pâté:
Bring stock to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove pan from heat, add porcini, and let soak in hot stock until softened, about 30 minutes.
With a slotted spoon, transfer porcini to a medium-mesh sieve set over a bowl. Press on porcini to remove excess liquid, then add this to soaking liquid and reserve. Chop the mushrooms coarsely and put in a large bowl.
Strain reserved soaking liquid through a fine-mesh sieve lined with a coffee filter or dampened paper towel into another small saucepan. Bring to a brisk simmer over moderate heat and simmer until reduced to about 1/4 cup, about 10 minutes. Add to porcini.
Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350°F.
Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over moderate heat. Add shallots and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened, about 6 minutes. Add sherry and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a blender. Add another tablespoon of butter to the same skillet and add the shiitake mushrooms. Cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Reserve a few nice mushroom slices for garnish, then place half the shiitakes in the bowl with the porcini and the other half in the blender with the shallots. Repeat this process with the oyster mushrooms.
Add cream, then eggs and almonds to blender and purée until mixture is very smooth, about 2 minutes. Add purée to porcini mixture and stir in parsley, thyme, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper until well combined.
Place the reserved mushroom strips on the bottom of your loaf pan or other pate mold, then pour mixture into loaf pan and cover with foil.
Put loaf pan in a larger baking pan and add enough boiling water to reach halfway up sides of loaf pan. Bake until set 1/2 inch from edges, about 50 minutes (pâté will not be completely set in center). Remove loaf pan from baking pan and let cool to room temperature on a rack. Refrigerate pâté in loaf pan, covered, for at least 6 hours.

Summer fruit terrine

This one was honestly a disappointment. We both generously offered each other the leftovers. And we both chose the biscotti option instead. While it looks just beautiful, it tasted just like a slightly refined jell-o salad. It made Mrs. Monkeyshines recall oh so many childhood church potlucks :-( We suggest that there are better uses for such beautiful summer fruit.
However, if you have fond recollections of church potlucks and jell-o salad, you can find the recipe on epicurious.

Duck pate with wine-glazed shallots en croute

Another really delicious pate – and (hooray!) no liver! This recipe is a combination of several that we found and also our own inclinations to not actually follow any particular recipe. It helps to make this in a springform pan or other pan that you can disassemble part way so that the crust can brown (and so you can unmold the thing in the end to serve). Again, I am including a recipe that is about twice what we made – I used a 6” springform pan and there was probably room for another 50% of filling, but the size was just fine for the half recipe too.
2 boneless duck breasts or meat from 4 duck legs (1 3/4 to 2 lb total)
4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh marjoram
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3-4 juniper berries, finely ground
2 tablespoons sweet vermouth
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup shelled pistachios (2 1/2 oz)
For glazed shallots:
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 fresh thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
1/2 lb small shallots, peeled and quartered lengthways
For pastry
350 grams all purpose flour
250 grams butter
4 Tbsp water
Prepare duck terrine:
If using duck legs (which we did), cut the meat off the bones and reserve skin. A boneless breast would be a lot easier, but gets you to the same place. Chill meat and skin with fat, in freezer until firm but not frozen, about 1 hour.
Grind the meat and fat together in a meat grinder (or pulse carefully in a food processor). Add remaining duck terrine ingredients to ground-duck mixture and mix until combined well. Chill, covered with plastic wrap, in refrigerator at least 8 hours to marinate.
Glaze shallots:
Bring wine, vinegar, sugar, salt, thyme, and bay leaf to a boil in a 1- to 1 1/2-quart saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then add whole shallots and cover surface of liquid with a round of parchment or wax paper. Simmer shallots vigorously until tender, about 40 minutes, then transfer from cooking liquid to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Discard thyme sprig and bay leaf. If liquid isn't syrupy, boil until reduced to about 1/3 cup. Cool these items separately.
Make pastry:
Blend the flour and butter in a food processor until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the water and mix until it just comes together. Turn out on a lightly floured board and knead into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.
Line and bake terrine:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
Roll out 2/3 of the dough in a shape to best suit your pan. As noted above we used a 6” springform. Drape the dough in the pan and press the sides to even out the folds. Add about half the duck. Spread the shallots over the duck, pressing them gently into the meat. Cover with the remaining duck. Press down to compact. Roll out the remaining dough, place on the terrine and crimp the edges together.
Bake terrine for about 50-60 minutes, then unmold the sides of the pan. Return to the oven and bake another 15-20 minutes until the internal temperature registers 155 to 160°F, and the crust is nicely browned. Cool on a wire rack, then cover and refrigerate at least 6 hours.
Let terrine stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving, then cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices and serve on plates drizzled with reserved wine syrup.

Chicken pate with spring vegetables

OK, this one started out in near disaster. Mrs. Monkeyshines, as is customary, found a recipe that looked good, but didn’t actually read it until she was about halfway through making it. It turns out that the recipe she found was composed of pre-cooked chicken and leeks and mushrooms bound in gelatine. Of course she didn’t reach this realization until after she’d poached a whole chicken breast, made chicken stock and started to poach the leeks in the stock. Jell-o salad with meat?! What were these guys thinking?? That was a non-starter. She chucked the recipe in disgust and took a trip to the store to buy more chicken.
And she winged it. And she is (justifiably) proud of her result. This one was perhaps the most photogenic of the pates we tried. We can’t say that it was the best, because they were all really delicious, but this one did hold its own against the others.
1 lb ground chicken meat
¼ cup heavy cream (next time I might omit the cream and use chicken stock instead)
1 egg
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper
2 large leeks – white part only
4-6 stalks of asparagus
1 cup of chicken stock (optional – you could use water if you want)
5-6 slices prosciutto
Make the pate
Wash the leeks cutting them in half to make sure you get all the grit out, then tie them back together with kitchen string. Simmer gently in the stock for about 10 min. You don't really want to cook the leeks through, just to give them a little head start. Honestly, I just let it sit in the hot stock (with the stove turned off) about 20 min. while I walked to the store and back
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, mix the chicken, herbs and salt and pepper. Beat the egg and add to the mix.
Line a terrine pan or loaf pan with the prosciutto slices, then add thin layer of the chicken. Place asparagus stalks in the pan running lengthways, cover with a little more meat, then untie the leeks and place half the quarters in the pan running parallel to the asparagus (I butted them together end to end to make a more or less continuous line of leek along the pan). Top again with more meat, then asparagus and leeks. Finish with another thin layer of chicken and press to compact and even it out. Cover the top with a slice of prosciutto if you have any left.
Cover the terrine with foil, and bake in a water bath for an hour or until the meat registers 155-160 degrees.
Weight the pate
Place another loaf pan or a piece of cardboard cut to size and wrapped in foil on top of the terrine. Put 2 to 3 (1-pound) cans this cover to weight cooked terrine. Chill pate in pan with weights until completely cold, at least 4 hours. Continue to chill, with or without weights, at least 24 hours to allow flavors to develop.
So has Mrs. Monkeyshines learned her lesson about reading recipes first? If experience is our guide, then probably not.
However, through this challenge, we learned not only how to make some excellent pates and terrines, I think we’ve gained an understanding of how to successfully put one together with little more than imagination and a few basic ingredients. It’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever purchase a pâté again, as making one is so simple and so rewarding.

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This was truly an excellent challenge, we want to thank both Valerie and Evelyne for their great idea! Our approx. 2000 fellow Daring Cooks have also created some really wonderful pates – this link leads to a listing of the thousands of other creations we wish we had time to try as well.

The Whole Enchilada

2010-05-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

Here is our interpretation of the May 2010 Daring Cooks challenge. Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.
Enchiladas (from the Spanish verb enchilar = to season with chili) are a familiar dish to us here in California, and some variant of this dish frequently makes it onto our weekly menu. Nevertheless, we had never before made our own tortillas, so we decided to do so for this challenge. An additional challenge presented itself when we visited our local farmers’ market – one of the vendors was selling nopales (prickly pear cactus pads), which was a new ingredient for us. We were more than happy to pay a little extra to have the spines removed.
The nopales turned out to have a bright, fresh and slightly bitter flavor, which we thought would contrast nicely with a spicy chile sauce. So, the challenge was on – it remained only to figure out how to put it all together.
A little research suggested that nopales and potato is a classic combination, so our first attempt at enchiladas was Enchiladas de Nopales y Papas. We are fortunate to have access to a wide variety of both fresh and dried chiles, and made full use of them in this recipe!
For the sauce, we used our standard red chile sauce, which is basically a mix of what chiles we have on hand (and since we love enchiladas in the monkey household, there are always chiles on hand) with garlic or onion, oregano, maybe some cumin, and water or stock. This is one of those wonderful items that is super easy to make (just above toast in the boil water-to-macaroon scale of cooking complexity) and is so vastly superior to buying canned sauce that I can guarantee that if you try it, you’ll never ever buy another can of enchilada sauce.

Enchiladas de Nopales y Papas

The filling:
1 large Russet potato, diced
2 nopales pads, diced
1 fresh pasilla pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 handful cilantro leaves, chopped
4oz Jack cheese, grated
The sauce (makes enough for leftovers):
5-8 Assorted dried chiles (New Mexico, California, Negro, Morita, Chipotle)
3 cloves garlic, unpeeled
few sprigs fresh oregano
1 tsp freshly ground cumin
The tortillas:
2 cups masa harina
1 1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
To garnish: queso fresco

Our fresh and dried ingredients
To prepare the filling, sauté the potato, pasilla pepper and onion until soft; add the cactus towards the end of cooking so that it retains some firmness and color. Mix in the cilantro and grated cheese; set aside.

For the sauce: toast the chiles and unpeeled garlic in a dry skillet until they start to color and become fragrant. Remove from the pan, peel the garlic and remove the stems from the chiles (you can also de-seed them if you want a less spicy sauce). Grind the garlic and chiles along with the cumin and oregano to coarse flakes in the blender, then add water and continue blending until a thick puree forms. This sauce will thicken as it sits, so you may need to adjust the water.

We prepared the masa dough according to the instructions on the bag – essentially mix the ingredients together, then roll out into tortillas. The dough was a bit sticky to work with, but we found it could be rolled out quite easily between two sheets of cling film/saran wrap. We were going to make stacked enchiladas, so made relatively small ‘personal size’ tortillas – about 4-5 inches across. They were cooked on each side in a dry skillet (it’s a bit like making pancakes – the first one is always awful, the rest pretty good.)

Assemble the stacks with the filling between layers of tortilla, smother with sauce and add a little queso on top. Bake at 350 for 25 min or until the cheese starts to melt and brown.
We served the enchiladas with a little salad made from julienned nopales, tomato and (mild) jalapeno pepper in a light vinaigrette – it was a refreshing counterpoint to the rich and spicy enchiladas.

Classic Chicken Enchiladas

For our second attempt at the recipe we decided to go with something closer to the original recipe posted by Barbara and Bunnee – chicken enchiladas in a mild green tomatillo sauce. This time we bought the tortillas – our favorite local Mexican store sells a dozen delicious, freshly made (i.e. still warm!) corn tortillas for $0.45, which is the main reason we haven’t made our own tortillas before… If we’re 100% honest, the purchased ones are a lot better than our home-made. But our home made ones were better than what you can typically buy in a standard grocery.
The filling:
2 chicken breasts, bone in
2 sprigs oregano
1 Bay leaf
1 small onion
Salt and pepper
The sauce:
# lb tomatillos, papery shell removed
3 pasilla peppers
1 handful cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
Cheese

Put the chicken, onion, herbs and spices in a heavy saucepan and add enough water to cover and simmer until cooked, about 40 minutes. Remove the chicken and onion but don’t discard the broth! When cool, shred the chicken, chop the cooked onion and add salt, pepper and cilantro to taste. Mix well; this will be the enchilada filling.

Add the tomatillos to the chicken broth and cook gently until soft, about 5 minutes. If you didn’t keep your broth, water works too.. Meanwhile, roast the pasilla peppers until they are soft and the skins are blistered:

To make the sauce: drain the tomatillos, remove the skin and stems from the peppers and puree them together with the cilantro.
Assembling the enchiladas: Briefly heat the tortillas in the microwave to soften them – about 10 sec should do it. Roll up some of the filling in each tortilla, stacking them one against the other as you go.

Pour over the sauce, top with some cheese and bake for about 40 minutes until the cheese starts to brown (see photo at top of page). Enjoy!

Meshuge Bialys

2010-04-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

Last week out of the blue, I got the urge to make bialys. For the uninitiated, a bialy is essentially a flattened bagel with a central filling of onions and (usually) poppy seeds. The more I thought about it, though, the more hesitant I became. It’s rare that my schedule affords me to avoid all contact with others. And when I eat onion-y things I become a living breathing onion. Not good.
It made me wonder, actually, why are bialys always filled with onions?OK, or sometimes garlic, but that’s not really putting this item on a different track, is it… Bagels are adorned with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onions, cheese, even <shudder> chocolate chips; why have bialys not similarly evolved?
Since I have nothing to prove, except that I am a considerate eater of bread products, I took my bialy batch off road. And I am so glad I did. I filled some with tomatoes, capers and cream cheese and others with ham and cheddar. Choosing between them would be like selecting a favorite child. But together they definitely go in the pantheon of favorites and I’ll certainly make them again. Soon. Maybe next week.

Bialys

Adapted from Bread: A baker’s book of techniques and recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman
makes 12
1 lb 6 oz bread flour
13 oz water
.4 oz (2 tsp) salt
.1 oz (1 tsp) active dry yeast
Fillings:
2 tomatoes, sliced thinly
3 oz cream cheese
1 Tbsp capers, rinsed
2 oz prosciutto or ham slices
2 oz grated cheddar cheese
This is what I used anyway, feel free to experiment further and report back!
Place all the ingredients in a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment. Mix on low speed for 3 min. then mix another 5 minutes on second speed. The dough should be fairly stiff and the gluten well developed.
Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough in it. Cover and let rise for 2 hours, with a fold at 60 minutes.
Divide the dough into 12 3-oz pieces. Shape each piece lightly into a ball. Place the dough balls on 2 baking sheets that have been dusted with flour. (If you use a non-stick baking sheet, you can skip the flour part of this step.. ). Leave enough room between the balls that they can comfortably grow during proofing.
Proof the dough balls for 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat your over, with a stone if you have one, to 480 degrees. Pick up one ball of dough and press your thumbs into the center to make a well. Keeping your thumbs in the well, rotate and gently stretch the ball, widening the well and creating a small wall on the outside. When you’re done, the bialy should be about 4” in diameter. In form factor, it will look like a fruit danish except that there’s no filling. Yet. Continue shaping the other dough balls until you have made enough to fit on the stone. If you’re baking on baking trays, then go ahead and shape them all or as many as you have room for in one batch.
Add your toppings, placing them in the well that you’ve formed. The ingredients I listed made 6 tomato, cream cheese & caper bialys and 6 ham and cheese bialys. For the tomato bialys, I smooshed the cream cheese a bit with my fingers to spread it approximately evenly on the dough, then added the capers (so they wouldn’t fall off when cooking or eating) and placed the tomatoes on top. The ham and cheese was simply a matter of piling a mound of shredded cheese in the well, then topping with ham.
Bake for 8 minutes, then cool on a rack before you dig in. But they are best served warm.

Look for these and other treasures on YeastSpotting, the weekly round-up of freshly baked creations on Wild Yeast.

Daring Stew

2010-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club. You can find both recipes here once the links are up.
My initial thought was to deconstruct the stew as a way to step up the challenge (and to work on our plating skills which remain weak, on the order of pathetic). The Monkey disagreed, though, convinced that we couldn’t properly deconstruct something if we didn’t even know what it was.
He eventually prevailed, and we ultimately followed the Lee Brothers’ recipe, with a few modifications. Before we get into the details, let’s say up front that the stew was quite good. In my mind, stew = dark, beefy, gravy-y stuff that you eat on really cold nights. I can’t say I’d run for Brunswick Stew on a really hot night, but it was so much lighter and full of vegetables than we had expected. I can see us making this again in the summer when the vegetables in this recipe are in season (and since summer in San Francisco is usually cooler than you’d expect!)
OK, back to the recipe. For starters, we halved it and still seemed like there was enough to serve 12 - even though the original recipe ostensibly serves 12. It did fill our crock-pot nearly to the brim.

Brunswick Stew

Serves about 12
2 oz or about 3-4 strips home-cured bacon, roughly diced
2 Serrano, Thai or other dried red chiles, minced (we used 1 dried Pasilla pepper in ours)
1/2 lb Rabbit, quartered, skinned (here we used Veal Stew as it is easier to scale than rabbit and we thought it would have a similar texture/flavor profile)
1 whole chicken breast, cut into 2 pieces
1 1/2 Tsp salt or to taste
1 – 1 1/2 quarts Chicken Broth
1 Bay leaf
1 large celery stalk, sliced (we used 2)
1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and roughly diced
3/4 cup carrots, chopped (we used a dozen or so whole baby carrots)
2 medium onions, chopped
1 cup fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob (this time of year?? Sadly, we used canned)
1 1/2 cups butterbeans, preferably fresh (we substituted a jar of Gigantes in Tomato Sauce from Trader Joe’s for both this and the tomato below)
1 14 oz can tomatoes, drained
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar (we did not use this, can only follow a recipe for so long to the extent we follow them at all… )
Juice of 1 lemon (we did not use)
Tabasco sauce to taste
Directions-
1-In the largest stockpot you have, fry the bacon over medium-high heat until it just starts to crisp. Transfer to a large bowl, and set aside. Reserve most of the bacon fat in your pan, and with the pan on the burner, add in the chilies. Toast the chiles until they just start to smell good, or make your nose tingle, about a minute tops. Remove to bowl with the bacon. We made our stew in the crock-pot, so fried the items in a skillet, then threw them in the pot.
2- Season liberally both sides of the rabbit and chicken pieces with sea salt and pepper. Place the rabbit pieces in the pot and sear off all sides possible. You just want to brown them, not cook them completely. Remove to bowl with bacon and chiles, add more bacon fat if needed, or olive oil, or other oil of your choice, then add in chicken pieces, again, browning all sides nicely. Remember not to crowd your pieces, especially if you have a narrow bottomed pot. Put the chicken in the bowl with the bacon, chiles and rabbit. Set it aside.
3- Add 2 cups of your chicken broth or stock, if you prefer, to the pan and basically deglaze the pan, making sure to get all the goodness cooked onto the bottom. The stock will become a nice rich dark color and start smelling good. Bring it up to a boil and let it boil away until reduced by at least half. Add your remaining stock, the bay leaves, celery, potatoes, chicken, rabbit, bacon, chiles and any liquid that may have gathered at the bottom of the bowl they were resting in. Bring the pot back up to a low boil/high simmer, over medium/high heat. Reduce heat to low and cover, remember to stir every 15 minutes, give or take, to thoroughly meld the flavors. Simmer, on low, for approximately 1½ hours. Supposedly, the stock may become yellow-tinged with pieces of chicken or rabbit floating up, the celery will be very limp, as will the chilies. Taste the stock, according to the recipe, it “should taste like the best chicken soup you’ve ever had”. We started with a rich stock, so didn’t bother to reduce, just put all these ingredients in the crock pot and cooked for ~4 hours. We lightly sautéed the onion and put it in at this point as well.
4- With a pair of tongs, remove the chicken and rabbit pieces to a colander over the bowl you used earlier. Be careful, as by this time, the meats will be very tender and may start falling apart. Remove the bay leaf, celery, chiles, bacon and discard. Discard the bacon??? That’s heresy in this house. We left all these bits in as they were too small and/or too delicious to take out.
5 After you’ve allowed the meat to cool enough to handle, carefully remove all the meat from the bones, shredding it as you go. Return the meat to the pot, throwing away the bones. Add in your carrots, and stir gently, allowing it to come back to a slow simmer. Simmer gently, uncovered, for at least 25 minutes, or until the carrots have started to soften.
5- Add in your onion, butterbeans, corn and tomatoes. Simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring every so often until the stew has reduced slightly, and onions, corn and butterbeans are tender. Remove from heat and add in vinegar, lemon juice, stir to blend in well. Season to taste with sea salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce if desired. The daring cooks were pretty evenly divided over whether the vinegar and lemon made the dish or ruined it. Taste before you proceed on that one. Both times we made the dish, we forgot completely about them, so can’t really say much aside from it tasted good without the acid.
6 You can either serve immediately or refrigerate for 24 hours, which makes the flavors meld more and makes the overall stew even better. Serve hot, either on its own, or with a side of corn bread, over steamed white rice, with any braised greens as a side. It really was better the next day.
We served our stew in Sourdough Corn Bread Bowls, a recipe from fellow Daring Cook Susan at Wild Yeast. These were great, though the ones we made were a mite small for a reasonable bowl of stew. We’ll definitely make this bread again.

Here is the finished dish:

Brunswick Stew Redux

– this time deconstructed!

OK, I am nothing if not persistent. We made a second version of the stew, but it was not a stew; depending on how you look at it, this dish either captures the essence of Brunswick stew or totally misses the point. Nevertheless, it was delicious as well, with a fresh succotash, bacon-wrapped chicken and rabbit rillettes on a potato cake. The Monkey concocted a chicken-tomato-chile sauce that was intended to provided the same rich flavor profile as the original recipe:

Monkey’s Not So Secret Sauce

6 scallions
1 small carrot
1 rasher home-cured bacon
1 dried morita chile
2 tsp double concentrated tomato puree
2 cups homemade chicken broth
1 tsp cornstarch
Finely chop the onions, carrot and bacon and fry over medium heat until soft and slightly browned (add a little olive oil if the bacon is lean). Mix in the tomato puree, then transfer to a small saucepan with the chicken broth. Toast the chile on all sides, then add to the sauce. Simmer everything until reduced to about 1/2 – 3/4 cup, then remove from the heat and cool. Remove the chile and strain out the carrots, onions and bacon (I know – heresy!!!), pressing them through a sieve to get out as much of the tasty goodness as possible. Mix the cornstarch with a little of the sauce, then blend in to the rest of the sauce, stirring until thickened.
Here is an outline of how we made the rest of the dish:
Potato cake: Slice 4 Yukon Gold potatoes thinly and place in layers in a skillet, interspersing the layers with a little milk and butter. Cover with foil and bake in a 450 oven for 20 minutes, then (leaving the foil in place) squash the potatoes down into a compact layer and cook for a further 15 minutes.
Rabbit Rillettes: We followed a recipe from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook. (To be honest, we made this for a separate meal several weeks ago and had enough left over for this). We reheated it in a skillet before plating.

Succotash: We used peas, corn and fresh garbanzo beans/chick peas; parboil the vegetables for a minute or so, then strain and sauté lightly in a little oil, adding salt and pepper to taste. We had some nice fresh basil so added that as well.
Baby Carrots: Scrub clean and steam until tender.

Chicken: Wrap chicken breasts in thin slices of pancetta and fry on all sides until cooked through, about 12 minutes in all. Keep the pan covered (apart from when you turn them over) so that the chicken breasts don’t dry out.

Slice into medallions to serve:

Reduced Fat (but not for the reason you think) Pear Anise Biscotti

2010-03-24T19:06:00.001-07:00

Remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears? If you recall, our heroine tastes Father Bear’s porridge and finds it too hot; Mother Bear’s porridge is too cold, but Baby Bear’s porridge is just right. Similarly, Father Bear’s bed is too hard; Mother Bear’s bed is too soft, but Baby Bear’s bed is so comfortable that… well, you get the point. If you peruse the vast reaches of the Internet for biscotti recipes, they seem to fall into two distinct classes: Father Bear and Mother Bear Biscotti. Father Bear biscotti do not use butter, resulting in a hard, dry product. Definitely crunchy (and arguably a more genuine option), but sometimes leaving you with the impression that your teeth have broken off with each bite. On the other hand, Mother Bear Biscotti use about 4oz of butter for every 2 cups of flour; these tend to be softer, almost cake-like and not unpleasant by any means – but somehow lacking that satisfying dense texture and crunch.
With this in mind I set out to make Baby Bear Biscotti – crunchy, but not rock hard. I wish I could say that there is some subtle, clever trick to these, but it turns out to be pretty obvious: if you use just 2oz butter to every 2 cups of flour, they turn out fine. So here is the recipe for reduced (but not zero) fat biscotti. You can, of course, adapt this to use your favorite flavorings; I took inspiration from a very tasty pear tart with anise that we made a few months back.
Ingredients
2c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 oz butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 large eggs
1 cup dried pear, diced (about 6-8 pear halves)
1 tsp anise, ground in a mortar and pestle or spice mill
Preheat the oven to 350 ºF. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and ground anise in a bowl. Soften the butter and cut into small pieces. Using a stand or hand mixer, combine the butter and two sugars and cream together until smooth. Beat the eggs, mix them with the vanilla essence and gradually add to the butter/sugar, stirring continuously to incorporate the egg. Keep mixing on slow speed and add the flour mixture, about 1/4 cup at a time, until well incorporated. Mix in the pear (using a spatula or by hand; the dough will be quite stiff), then turn out the ball of dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two, then shape each half into a long bar, each about 12-14” long and 2” wide.
Place the bars on a large (nonstick or buttered) cookie sheet at least 3” apart and bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly brown. Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 325 ºF. After a few minutes, move the bars to a board and cut diagonally into ~1/2” slices. Return the sliced biscotti to the cookie sheet (cut side down) and bake for 8 minutes, then turn them over and bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Not So Hotto Risotto

2010-03-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.
When we initially saw this challenge we were a bit nervous, since one of us just doesn’t like risotto. (The other half of Monkeyshines in the Kitchen has no such aversion, so there was at least some reason to take on the challenge). Nevertheless, we embarked on the challenge with enthusiasm; unfortunately, it just didn’t really come together for us.
We found some really nice mushrooms at our local Farmers’ market, which inspired us to make a mushroom risotto. We usually buy some sort of mushroom from these folks (Far West Fungi) every week, and the risotto offered us the opportunity to try some varieties that we don’t normally use.

We ended up with -
tree oysters:

pioppini:

black trumpets:

- and finally some regular brown and white field mushrooms to make the stock. We started on the stock by roasting some onion, carrot and celery in the oven, until they were soft and just starting to get charred. We also sautéed the field mushrooms, then simmered all of the vegetables over a low heat for a couple of hours to give a light brown broth.

It was mushroomy and good; we purposely under-seasoned the broth so as not to make the final risotto too salty: however, in the final analysis I think that inadequate seasoning may have been one of the main problems with our creation.
We used Arborio rice and followed the challenge recipe – first coating the rice and onions in oil, then gradually adding the stock, making sure it was fully absorbed after each ladleful. The tree oysters, pioppini and some of the black trumpets were sautéed first, then added to the rice near the end of the cooking time.

Top left: Mushroom medley; top right: mushroom broth
Bottom left: rice and onions; bottom right: sautéed mushrooms
The final product certainly looked the part, with separate yet saucy grains of rice. We served it with some additional sautéed black trumpets on top and a few shavings of parmesan cheese. The taste? Unfortunately, even the risotto-loving Monkey found it to be a bit bland, and the texture wasn’t quite right – the rice seemed to be cooked all the way through, but didn’t have that soft creaminess that characterizes really good risotto.

Oh well – onwards and upwards. To Eleanor and Jess – honestly, this was a really good idea for a challenge, sorry we didn’t really do it justice.

Monkeyshines in the Kitchen

The Daring Cooks Flip for Patties

Home-cured Corned Beef

Corned beef

I <3 Ottolenghi

Quinoa pilaf wither Persian Lime

Chard cakes with Sorrel Sauce Lemon and Yogurt

Yogurt Flatbreads with Mushrooms and Barley

Hot Tamales

Happy New Year!

Char Siu and Char Siu Bao

Char Siu (Cantonese BBQ Pork)

Char Siu Bao

Tea-ing up with the Daring Cooks

Tea-Brined Chicken

Best. Duck. Ever.

A Chinese Feast

Moo Shu Pork:

Pancakes:

Hoisin Sauce:

Steamed Eggplant

Plum Cake

Plum Cake

A Consommé Achievement

Light Chicken Consommé

Savory Bacon, Potato and Cheddar Muffins

Bacon, Cheddar and Potato Muffins makes 8-10 muffins

Review: My Indian Kitchen by Hari Nayak

Appam my soul! More tasty Indian food!

Use your Noodle! (Daring Cooks Cook Noodles…)

Duck and Spinach Cannelloni

Ingredients

Buttermilk Spaetzle with Herbs

Buttermilk Spaetzle with Herbs

Potato Gnocchi alla Primavera

Ingredients

For the Primavera:

Potato Salad The Daring (but Healthy) Way

Herbed Potato Salad

Grilled Potato and Sausage Salad

Monkey’s Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Gumbo: the good times roll

Seafood Gumbo

Gumbo z’Herbes

Basic Louisiana White Rice

Basic Creole Spices

Containing the Daring Cooks

‘Lobster rolls’ in tarragon choux eclairs

Grapefruit and avocado salad in a semolina cracker cone

Forest of cracker cones

Artichoke stuffed with tarragon chicken salad

Chocolate, Cherry and Brown Butter – oh my!

Chocolate, Cherry and Brown Butter Cake

The Daring Cooks run hot and cold

Hiyashi Soba

Tempura

Miso Sauce

Duck Confit with Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms

Le Vrai Cassoulet

Cassoulet

beans and aromatics before baking

after an hour we added the lamb to the beans

An hour before serving we add the sausages

The final dish – cassoulet topped with duck confit and breadcrumbs

Saucisses de Toulouse

Duck Confit

Duck Confit

Grace Needs Help

Holiday Fougasse

Fougasse with Pears, Bacon and Blue Cheese

Poaching with the Daring Cooks

Olive oil poached shrimp, cucumber and poblano pepper salad, avocado and risotto with chestnuts and bacon.

Herb and Lemon Poached Baby Artichokes

Poaching the Artichokes

Dungeness Crab Tortelloni

Crab and Leek Tortelloni

Rise and Shine: Sweet and Savory Soufflés

just peeking over the edge – three cauliflower soufflés

Watercress Soufflé using the sabayon technique

Horseradish Soufflé

Bacon, Cheddar and Potato Muffins
makes 8-10 muffins