Jalapeño Cheese Bread and a Giant Boule

Out of the blue, my dad mentioned he liked jalapeño cheese bread. Why not make some? But I was in my parents' kitchen without my scales,  rising buckets and other paraphernalia.  But I made up a recipe and also one for a plain boule so I could use maximize the use of the oven's heat. They turned out quite well.

For both, I used a really high hydration (wet) dough so I could use the no-knead method I favor for flavor as well as laziness. Mix the ingredients together, put in a covered bucket (my mom's biggest pots), cover and refrigerate overnight (or three). I folded grated cheese and diced fresh jalapeños into one batch and left the other unadorned.  I gave them each a turn before going to bed, and another early in the morning.

Around noon, I  split the cheesy dough into thirds and shaped, and rose each in a mixing bowl nestled on a sheet of parchment paper; I shaped the unflavored dough into a giant boule in a big Le Cruset pot, also on parchment.  Both were left to rise two or three hours until the dough weakly sprung back from a poke in the side: the were risen enough but not too much.

I preheated the oven as high as it would go with three large pyrex mixing bowls and a giant ceramic crockpot insert inside it to get screaming hot, and when at temperature, carefully lowered the boules into their right-sized pots, using the parchment as a sling.  I covered them lightly with foil to retain moisture to encourage a lofty oven-spring.

They rose beautifully. After a half hour, I removed the foil to let them brown.   It's a ton of good bread and is going fast at the house.

This giant boule used 6 cups flour and is bigger than my head, or our giant Crypto. It's the most massive loaf I've made to date. 

Christmas 2015 Capon Stuffed with Duck, Sausage, Cherries

After watching Jacques Pepin's video of deboning a chicken ("it should take no more than one minute", hah!) we knew we wanted to do a ballotine -- a bird stuffed in a bigger bird. So for Xmas 2015, we asked M&P to pick up a capon (a castrated chicken, a very large bird) and a duck. We deboned the capon per Pepin's technique, and did likewise for the duck even though we didn't need to.

The deboning took at least 2 hours as the muscles and tendons of capons and ducks were much more developed than chickens, but we were practicing our technique. We separated the meat from the duck skin, and cooked up a log of pork sausage for the center. We laid out the sausage and duck meat on the opened deboned capon, then sprinkled with dried cherries.

We then rolled it up tight, ensuring the skin covered as much as we could, trussed it up tight and let it rest uncovered in the fridge overnight to ensure the skin was thoroughly dry to improve crispness.

The next day, we put it on an open rack over a shallow pan; it started breast side down since the white meat would tolerate less heat. We cooked it as low as the oven would go -- 170F; we were hoping to achieve an effect like we'd get with sous vide cooking: evenly cooked all the way through, avoiding drying out the exterior before the dense dark-meat ducky interior was thoroughly cooked. We had a temperature probe embedded in the center and watched it rise about 10F every half hour, and -- sure enough -- it rose from fridge temperature (maybe 35F) at noon to our target of about 165F at the designated dinner time of 6:00PM.

A blast under the broiler gave it a beautiful burnished look.

Then we cut off the strings and carved it for serving. Since it was cooked long and low (like sous vide) there was no need to rest it like conventional cooking. The meat held together well (even without transglutaminase, aka "meat glue") and maintained its shape.

Ed, Marge, Scott, Irene, Pat and I enjoyed it with roasted potatoes and green beans, and a gravy Irene elaborated from a stock she made from the bones. 

One disappointment we didn't expect was that capon skin is much thicker than chicken, so although it browned attractively, it was much too tough to chew through. This is definitely something we'd do again but I think we need a more domesticated bird to get the crisp skin.

Lime Frozen Yogurt Deconstructed Pie from Lucky Peach

We made this Lime Frozen Yogurt deconstructed pie from Lucky Peach magazine and really liked the zingy taste and rich body. The graham cracker crumbles were OK, but weren't so special. The lime yogurt froyo is fine as it is, or it makes a great key lime style pie. I'm taking it verbatim from their new web site, because I can never find it in my print magazine.


Makes 8 servings

LIME FROZEN YOGURT

2 C simple syrup
1/2 C + 2 T lime juice, strained
6 oz plain yogurt
3 1/2 oz sour cream
+ ice cream maker

MAKE THE LIME FROZEN YOGURT

Combine the yogurt ingredients—syrup, lime juice, yogurt, sour cream—in a large mixing bowl, and process with an immersion blender for one minute, until everything is completely homogeneous.

Churn the mixture in an ice cream machine for 20 minutes, or according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze for at least a few hours, preferably overnight, before serving. Serve with graham cracker crumble and toasted meringue.

Popovers

I got this recipe from my mom, aeons ago; it came from a classic tome, perhaps the Fannie Farmer Cook Book. They have a spectacular height, a crunchy outside and a gooey, almost custard-like interior. I've finally solved a problem that's vexed me all this time: preventing them from sticking.

I have a 6-cup popover pan, but don't see a reason you couldn't do it in muffin tins. Preheat the pan with the fat in the cups -- oil, bacon or other tasty fat; when the batter hits the hot fat, it will set quickly, instead of adhering to the hot metal. just before adding the batter.

This time, we had some salty country ham from the Amish farmers at the market, so I added it to the batter. I filled the cups first, then lightly added the ham: I find dense things like cheese sink to the bottom.

The sifting of the flour probably isn't necessary, unless yours has clumps. But when I measured with a scale, a cup of sifted flour weighed 127g, while a cup of unsifted flour is 165g -- a 30% difference! I suspect the weight is the important thing, so you can add unsifted flour but have to do it by weight instead of volume.

Below, I'm streamlining the process so I can build the batter in a big measuring cup, which I can then use to pour into the hot pans: easier, and less dirty dishes. You can mix the batter and hold in a fridge until needed, Serious Eats even recommends this; I found the pouring cold batter into the hot pans worked well, I didn't need to let it come to room temperature but you might want to take the batter out of the fridge while the oven heats.

 30 ml   6 tsp    Fat (oil, bacon fat, etc)
240 ml   1 Cup    Milk 
  2 whole         Eggs
 30 g    1/2 tsp  Salt
130 g    1 Cup    Flour (if using 1 C measure, sift first) 

Divide the fat between the Popover Pan cups and put in oven to heat the fat and metal.
Preheat oven to 220C/425F (not convection).
Measure the Milk into a  1L/4C measuring cup with spout.
Add Eggs and Salt, then whip with fork or whisk to mix well.
Add Flour: you can do this on scale to save using another bowl, just put whisk over the cup; if you're using the 1 Cup measure of Flour, remember to pre-sift into its own measuring cup.
Mix the ingredients together but don't over work; some lumps are OK.
Pour into the now screamin' hot popover pan cups, the batter will bubble up; try not to dribble on the cups, else that will stick and your expanding popover may stick to it.
Bake for 35-45 minutes until well-puffed and golden- to rich-brown, depending on your taste.
Remove popovers from pan and serve immediately else the moisture trapped inside will cause them to lose their crunch.
If the popovers have stuck, use something like a wooden knife or stiff heat-proof spatula so you don't scratch the putative non-stick coating.

Black Cod marinated in Sake Kasu

We first had this at Sushi Taro in DC and enjoyed the dense meaty texture and unusual flavor. It gets this by an extended marinade in Sake Kasu -- the "lees" left over from making sake. It's a preservative, and allows us to marinate raw fish for for a week in the fridge without spoiling. 

The "cod" is really West Coast sablefish but at $20-$30 per pound for the fish, it's a treat.  Kasu comes in square flat-ish plastic packaging from the frozen section of Asian markets.  I paid $3.40 for a 300g package at Katagiri in NYC but have also bought it Han ah Reum (Hmart) in Falls Church, VA and most recently Hana Japanese Market in DC.

The Uwajimaya market defines Kasuzuke and has link to Black Cod Kasuzuke. The New York Times has a good article on a number of Seattle chefs preparing this. I love this: Google's photo-translator says the package reads:
Flavor is rich and nourishing economical, it is well warm sake lees!! 
Minced delicious recipe d) Kasujiru serving 40g lees of lees use, place for a while over the water, to the Toka to Kasujiru, and the lower salmon small, green onions, radishes, carrots, and include, but are boiled to put konjac such as an O-sweet In addition the Mizuyaku 200ml and sugar to alcohol serving 50g lees, dissolve over the fire. ● miso 6 by reducing the miso of miso soup amounting callings lees miso soup every day, please call up with the seasoned at a rate of sake lees 4. Sake lees, the spots of white or yellow or generated on the surface, you Yuki discolored (pink, etc.) without it, please use it and worry because is due to aging of sake lees. It should be noted that, lees, which is a by-product of sake might millet, etc. derived from the raw material rice is mixed but, please use by removing that there is no harm.

I've made this with Black Cod (Sable) and it's terrific, though the fish is $20-30 per pound from DC's better fishmongers.  I've also made it -- at the same time with the same salt and marinade regimen -- with wild-caught Salmon and East Coast Cod: both came out very salty and dry, while the Sable came out moist and sweet; I don't know why.  The Sable cooked without the marinade has a mucilaginous fatty layer under the skin which isn't appealing without the Kasu treatment. I've also done this with unsalted shrimp and scallops, simple and good. Some articles claim to reuse the Kasu marinade, and I've done it repeatedly with the same batch of kasu and lived to tell the tale.

Sushi Taro in DC serves this skin side up but I serve it skin-side down and don't tend to eat the skin. Maybe if I broiled it skin-side up it would be a bit more appetizing but then I'd lose the appealing flesh color.

Serves 2 for a main course of 4 for an appetiser

Ingredients

340 g   Black Cod (Sable fish, 12 ounce)
 23 g   Kosher Salt (1/6 cup)
150 g   Kasu (one half of 300g package, 5 oz)
 25 g   Sugar (1/8 cup)
 60 ml  Sake (1/4 cup)

Preparation

Salt both sides of the fish, cover and refrigerate 12-48 hours. When I did this with less salt for 24 hours it turned out more salty than more salt for 48 hours; I don't know why. You'll have to experiment. Rinse off the salt and pat dry.

Mix up the Kasu, Sugar and Sake until it's like a thick paste, mine was a bit too thick to pour.  Put the fish -- whole -- into the marinade, coat well, and refrigerate for 7 days; you can use a zip-top bag for this.  (I usually throw in some shelled shrimp for a chef's treat).

Wipe off the marinade and cut the fish into individual serving-sized chunks; the fish will have firmed up which makes for well-defined slices.  

Place the pieces on a cookie sheet, skin-side down.  Broil until the fish starts to brown and the fish is barely cooked; the sugar gives it an appealing darkness without over-cooking the fish.

We served this with Horensu Goma-ae, spinach with a toasted sesame dressing.

Horenso Goma-ae: Spinach with Sesame

We had this steamed spinach with sesame dressing at Sushi Taro in DC: it's cool and refreshing. I found various recipes on the web which are similar to the one in _A First Book of Japanese Cooking_ by Masako Yamaoka.

The book does this with green beans and I've done it with steamed broccoli; I bet it would be dynamite on some crunchy Wakame seaweed. I've also substituted sake or rice wine when I didn't have the Dashi.

10 ounce Spinach, stemmed
2 Tbs Sesame Seeds, toasted
1/2 Tbs Dashi (3/4 C water and 1/4 tsp granules)
1 1/2 tsp Miso, white
1 Tbs Soy
1 Tbs Sugar

Blanch the spinach briefly in boiling salted water -- a minute max -- and shock in ice water.  Fish out leaves and lay on kitchen towels to dry; this is a bit of a nuisance but you don't want them to get tangled up in a mass or it will be too dense.

Toast the Sesame Seeds in a dry skillet, then grind the Sesame Seeds with a mortar and pestle until it becomes a crumbly paste.

Dissolve the Sugar in the Soy so it doesn't have a gritty texture when you eat it; it may help to heat the Soy.
Combine all ingredients except the Spinach and adjust liquid until it has the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

Put Spinach into a bowl and stir in sauce to combine.
Serve. 

Jacque Pepin's deboned chicken, lollipops

I discovered this video of Jacque Pepin fully deboning a chicken and it blew me away: so fast, so efficient. We did this for a ballotine (chicken stuffed with duck and pheasant) and it took us a long time boning the birds -- tons of detailed knife-work. When Jacques said,  "it should not take you much more than a minute to bone out a chicken" I new we had to try it; I really like that he said, "the biggest mistake is to use the knife very much".

We don't have any photos of the boning process. It took us considerably more than a minute. But the technique is great and we'll get faster as we practice. The chicken wing "lollipops" were a fun by-product.

Below is the chicken, stuffed, and trussed with butcher's twine ready for the oven.

We roasted it until the internal temperature was about 145F/63C, rotating it a couple times near the end to ensure the skin was crispy all around.

We sliced it and had a fairly well behaved roll of chicken enclosing stuffing, and crispy skin.  Next time we might try adding some intensely flavored sausage to the filling.

I'll have to update this post when we do this again to show the deboning and stuffing, and the finished slices.

We saved the chicken wing lollipops (do watch the video, it's right at the beginning) and then dusted them with flour, fried them in oil until crisp, then briefly draining them.

We served it for breakfast with some migas (a southwestern hash of crisp tortilla chips with scrambled eggs)  garnished with pomegranates.

Simple Salmon Ceviche

When we get a side of fish, like salmon for gravlax and dinner, I trim off the thin and unruly bits and make quick ceviche -- fish "cooked" in lime juice. We had lots of little bits that weren't the right shape for our potato-chip crusted salmon, so we whipped this up. It takes just a few minutes to assemble and is ready to eat in 30 minutes.

Here, we added some pimientos de padron for a bit of heat, dust with charcoal salt for dramatic service, and accompany with some lovely Pisco from the home of both ceviche and Pisco -- Peru.

Cut the fish into small chunks or thin strips. You want something you can eat in a bite, perhaps even fit on a tortilla chip. Dice or slice up some chili peppers if you're so inclined, possibly even a little onion. Place this into a bowl, or better, a zip-top bag sitting in a bowl (in case of leaks).

Squeeze enough limes to cover all the fish with the juice. Holding the fish in the bag allows you to maximize coverage with minimum wasted juice.

Seal it up, and put it in the fridge to "cook". I think 30 minute is probably the minimum it needs to turn the floppy raw fish into a more substantial meaty flesh.  If you let it sit too long it can get a bit over-cooked and grainy, and take on too much of the lime juice flavor: you want the taste of fish, not limeade. (A citrus soak isn't "cooking" in the normal sense, but it does denature the proteins, which is also an effect heat has on meats.)

Strain the juice off the fish -- and save it!  This manly elixer is called "leche de tigre" (tiger's milk) and when drunk, "makes you strong like bull".  I like it with a shot of tequila, even for breakfast; it's a bracing way to start the day.

You can serve the fish by itself, like we did. In Peru, they serve it with fried corn kernels called Cancha, and the saltiness plays off the bite of the citrus. We've served it with tortilla chips that have the same salty, corny goodness.

We do this with just about any saltwater fish we happen to be working with at home.

Potato Chip-crusted salmon from Cooks Illustrated

Cook's Illustrated published this quirky recipe in 2007 (paywall) and it's become part of our repertoire: super easy, tasty, unusual, and very adaptable. Cook salmon until almost done, paint with mustard, coat with crushed potato chips, then broil briefly to finish. You can throw this together in about 10 minutes with stuff you have in your kitchen. I like to think of it as fish-n-chips. :-)

Tonight, I got a giant side of salmon: Irene's making gravlax for next week, so we'll serve up a couple portions for tonight's dinner.  Instead of mustard, we've used things like Indian lime pickle (excellent, intense), and tonight we're going to use a tart and sweet tamarind paste. We served it with steamed broccoli rabe (rapini).

Crush the potato chips with some breadcrumbs to lighten up the chips. You could add flavorings too if you like: lime zest or dill seem reasonable.

 They shouldn't be as fine as powder, a little chunky -- you want some texture.

Portion the salmon and season. Don't over-season: the mustard, tamarind, or other jammy paste you add later will provide more seasoning. I put it on foil on the baking sheet to make cleanup a snap.

Toss it under the broiler for a few minutes until it's almost done. You only need to broil one side: the side of salmon's not too thick, and we're keeping the surface about 3 inches below the heat. Below, you can see just a hint of browning. The interior of the flesh should still be quite translucent. You'll finish with a bit more heat.

Choose a tasty and fish-friendly paste the texture of jam that will let you adhere your potato chip coating. Here, we're using tamarind concentrate we had lurking in the fridge. It's got a nice acid and a bit of sweetness. Mustard, intense Indian "pickle" (like a chutney, with attitude), horseradish sauce, and lots of other things will work. You probably don't want anything with too much texture, but a bet a zingy grapefruit marmalade would be good.

Paint it on in a thin but not stingy layer. It doesn't have to be too neat, but get the side surfaces so the coating will stick there too.

Dust liberally with your potato chip coating mixture. I scoop it up around the edges so every surface is covered.

Pop it back under the broiler until the potato chips just start browning, just a minute or two. Because of the fat in the potato chips, this happens very quickly. If you burn them, you should be able to scrape the charred bits off recoat, and broil again. Just try not to overcook the fish. Below, the potato chips are just turning brown.

Inside, the center of the fish is still translucent. The flesh flakes away easily, perfectly done.

Sunburned Gypsy's Arm

We saw a few seconds in a video "I'll Have What Phil's Having: Barcelona" of a rolled, stuffed potato thing (start at 20:45; by the way, Suculent is an excellent restaurant!). They called it "Gypsy's Arm". It looked like mashed potatoes topped with various brightly flavored vegetables, some tasty Spanish tuna (their canned stuff is amazing), the rolled up. It was then topped with aioli. I don't know why we were so attracted to it, but we were both determined to try and make it.

We searched the name and concentrated on the potato version rather than the Swiss Roll dessert version. Most of the searches ended up with people referring to Anya von Bremzen's book The New Spanish Table, but we couldn't "look inside the book" so we just winged it. The funny thing is that all the images we found on the web were garishly garnished, like 1950's American interpretations of overwrought French dishes.

We weren't enthusiastic about the colorful toppings so we decided to paint the finished roll with aioli -- as most recipes suggest -- but then brown it under the broiler to add some color, instead of the uniform golden sauce.

(Before we begin, I will apologize for the photos. I must have had the white-balance set very badly, the pictures came back unnaturally orange/yellow. Oddly, the videos came out properly tinted. The food looks much more appetising than these images suggest. Also, no: I do not know why Google's Blogger refuses to play the videos I've included here, from Google's own Photos application -- the arrow shows but it doesn't play the video, sorry.)

We cooked and riced potatoes, added a bit of milk to give it enough softness that it wouldn't crumble, then pressed them out on plastic film until it was mostly even.

We then topped it with a variety of flavorful vegetables including home grown padron peppers, marinated artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes in oil, chopped brined black olives, capers, and more. We then anointed it with a bit of home made sherry vinegar for brightness.

Now the hard part: rolling it up.  This is why I assembled it on the cling film. I brought the long edges up and over, trying to shape it with my hands as I lifted the sides -- I needed two more hands, but it eventually came together.

I then worked around the roll, tightening and evening it up, until it was a tolerable roll. I pinched and patted the ends closed and smoothed it out.

Irene had whipped up a garlic mayo -- aioli -- so I just painted it over the entire roll with a silicon pastfy brush, then sprinkled some pimenton (smoked paprika) on top.

A quick blast under the broiler -- really quick, the fat in the oil brows fast -- and we're done.

We served it with the potato still warm from the oven, with some endive.

The taste was very appealing: bright vegetables, filling tuna. The flavor profiles in fact remind me of a Salad Nicoise -- potatoes, green vegetables, tuna, briny olives and capers -- but this is inside out.

We had the rest of it the next day, cool from the fridge. The texture of the potatoes was better, more firm than the creamy mashed potato texture when it was warm. 

I'd definitely do this again (with better photos!): it's a great warm weather dish, perfect for sitting outside in the sun. I'll probably skip the browning step, but need some way to give the aioli some color without devolving to a 1950's technicolor look.

Vermouth #2 with Tinctures

We got hooked on Vermouth in Barcelona, a tasty nip served chilled, sometimes with a spritz of seltzer, with an orange peel and frequently an olive. A bit of sweetness balanced by herbaceous bitterness, a mild 15% alcohol, refreshing and perfect for a long afternoon -- and much more interesting than the insipid stuff you find in liquor stores. Many were artisanal, made locally. We had to try it.

We made one a while back but for this one we used a different approach. We made 17 tinctures of various botanicals, some from the garden (bay leaves), with exotic ones ordered online including the critical wormwood ("Wermut", in German) and gentian for bitterness. We soaked these in a clean, affordable vodka (Sobieski here, but I'd be fine with Luksusowa or Frïs) for a month, then strained through a fine mesh sieve and returned to their jars. This allows us to tweak the profile even after mixing a batch, something our previous bulk process did not. See the table below for proportion of botanical and vodka, then the amount of the tincture we added to the wine for the finished vermouth.

I first made a caramel, going for a bit lighter color than last time because Irene said it tasted too burnt (I thought it was fine, playing off the bitterness of the herbs).  Combine 200 g sugar and 67 g water, and bring to boil.

I broke a cardinal rule of pastry chefs and caused crystallization. Fortunately, I wasn't making a sauce, so I kept stirring after the water evaporated and let the chunks melt into a caramel.

The recipe I was starting from suggested a final temperature of about 185C/365F so I watched it with a Thermapen.

When it reached temperature (or go by color, a orangey maple syrup shade) pour it out onto a non-stick sheet like a Silpat and let it set up until hard and glass-like.

Heat 125 ml of wine gently and add the broken up caramel, stir until it dissolves. I tried to keep the temperature below the boiling point of alcohol (78C/173F) so I didn't lose the good stuff. This was achingly slow, so I bumped up the heat, comforted by the fact that the tinctures would add back precious alcohol.

While the wine syrup cooled, I measured out the tinctures with syringes; you could weigh them too with a small scale accurate to 0.5 g or so.

Botanical	g botanical for tincture	ml vodka for tincture	% (g/ml) tincture	ml tincture in vermouth
angelica root	20	200	10	15
bay leaves	10	100	10	15
black cardamom	20	100	20	1
cinnamon	20	100	20	8
clove	20	100	20	0.5
coriander	20	100	20	15
gentian root	20	200	10	2
juniper	20	100	20	15
nutmeg	20	100	20	5
bitter orange peel	40	200	20	15
vanilla	7	100	7	5
wormwood	20	200	10	4
black walnut shell	20	200	10	5
fennel	20	100	20	1
ginger	40	100	40	5
mace	10	100	10	5
rhubarb root	20	200	10	5

I added another 375ml wine and the wine syrup, then declared victory.

This batch has more body, more mouthfeel, and the caramel flavor is more caramel-ly and less burned than our first attempt. It tastes more like the vermouth we indulged in while in Barcelona.

Next time...

The dissolving of the caramel glass into the wine is tedious. Next time I think I'll put all the wine (125 + 375 = 500ml) into a jar, add the caramel shards, and hold in a water bath just below the boiling point until it dissolved of its own accord. Then I'd add the tinctures, to avoid any further loss to the angel's share.

Oh, so what did we do with all the seeds and stems, leaves and twigs, shells and roots from our tinctures? They have intense smells, and I bet a lot of intense flavor left in them. I collected them all in a jar and added enough clean vodka to cover. In a month, it should turn out to be a "garbage barge" amaro -- a bitter digestif. We've made these before, with intentional flavor profiles (e.g., "sweet" spices like for the winter holidays) and liked them. We'll see how this one turns out with all its random flavors.